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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27504184">Ashes To Ashes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindthebutterfly/pseuds/mindthebutterfly'>mindthebutterfly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Burning Stars [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: The Original Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gen, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:20:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27504184</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindthebutterfly/pseuds/mindthebutterfly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock's negotiations with the Romulans are threatened by continued strife in the Federation, as the Factions and the Dominion both make power plays to seize control. Julian Bashir must piece together his memories of the past to find the truth about his origins and the cure for two deadly plagues, one new and one that time has forgotten. </p><p>An Ambassador in jeopardy...</p><p>An icy prison world...</p><p>An assassination...</p><p>With war raging in the Alpha Quadrant, how far will two men go to meet or defy their destinies?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard, Data (Star Trek)/Original Female Character(s), Julian Bashir/Elim Garak, Julian Bashir/Original Male Character(s), Spock/Original Vulcan Character(s), William Riker/Deanna Troi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Burning Stars [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582660</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Family Jewels</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It goes without saying you need to read the other four parts of the Burning Stars series before you read this. It will make no sense to you otherwise.</p><p>I almost gave up on this. I got no feedback form part four and lately my irl world has just been falling apart. I write to escape and to get my amazing ideas out into the world, only to find they are not so amazing, terribly hard to get right, and often are not of any interest to other people. I am hugely critical of myself constantly judge everything I do as terrible. Only knowing that some people actually click and look at my stories is keeping me going and not throwing this into the trash. Thank you so much, I hope you know how much I appreciate every single person who reads my work</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They were beautiful, to his eyes. Tiny little living treasures. Each perfect sphere under the microscope was a glittering gem in the pink and blue stained glass sea of embryo tubes. He pulled back from his seat for a moment, feeling his elation could not be spoken in word.</p><p>“All of them are viable,” he decided to take a clinical approach, and turned to look at Moses, his second, who had beamed over to the Cold Station with him. “I’m not sure how I’m going to use this treasure just yet. So many tiny little lives to choose from. But I think cataloguing each embryo, and their matching records, is a start.”</p><p>“Not much information was left to tell us who from who,” said Moses, and Shepherd got up from the seat so his second could take his place. “What will you do?”</p><p>Shepherd quietly considered this. The Eugenics era embryos frozen here were a little known secret, but there were still regular visits to the station and the usual security measures. The Denobulans liked to keep track of all their medical facilities and equipment, and this storage facility also housed many viruses and pathogens for study. He would probably nick one or two of those for his own research while he was here. But if they kept coming and going, it wouldn’t be long until their activities were detected.</p><p>“I can’t risk my own identity being unmasked by this, I’m leaving the transport entirely in your care. It can take years for a child to develop, and we don’t have that much time. Finding ways to advance their aging will be critical,” he crossed his arms. “And advanced education and mental training.”</p><p>“Indeed,” Moses bent down to the microscope and Shepherd could feel the celebratory joy of the other man. “Can you estimate how much time you will need?”</p><p>“I can do my initial work here. Right now I’m supposed to be researching a cure for the virus I myself created,” Shepherd commented, leaning back. “We can load the embryos onto transport once we have all we need from the station.”</p><p>“We also need to consider <em> where </em> we’re going to bring everything.”</p><p>“Geonosia VI will be perfect,” said Shepherd. “It’s a place close to Earth, with the right environment for raising eighteen hundred augment children. And currently unoccupied.”</p><p>“All of them?” Moses looked stunned.</p><p>“There are nearly ten billion non-augmented humans, and over a trillion humanoids on allied worlds. We need numbers to make our case for existence, let alone to thrive. Scattered about as we are, our numbers may seem many on paper, but our power is fiercely divided.”</p><p>“Which is why the Factions want a leader,” Moses looked into the test tube. “We may or may not find the one we need…”</p><p>“Which is why we raise them all up and hope that one shows some early leadership ambition. But if we can find Khan’s own child here,” said Shepherd, looking around the laboratory in quiet contemplation. “We would have a leader for the people to rally around, even if that leader is just a child.”</p><p>Shepherd went over to the refrigeration unit and looked inside the glass windows, his heart full and his soul light. Arik Soong’s failed attempt to make augments into something they were not, nor ever would be, had set them back almost two hundred years. Though only a small number of Augments could be produced from this group of embryos, he felt that they represented the future, and the rebirth of everything that had been lost to them almost four hundred years ago.</p><p>Hope. No father could have felt any prouder.</p><hr/><p>She felt her feet were flying beneath her as she ran. All of eight years old and raring with energy she felt as if her feet were made with wings upon her heels as she raced down the long paved streets of her hometown of New Xi’An. Arched roofs and red painted wood and stone were the hallmarks of their village, inspired by the culture of the people of Earth from which the colonists originated from. Most of the Chinese here also wore the costumes of the ancient traditions, rejecting modernity with almost fatalistic pride. Her pretty blue floral silk dress was interfering with her ability to run and she hiked it up unconcernedly with her hands.</p><p>She wasn’t the only one running, and her heart was nearly bursting from the effort to keep up with the full legged adults, her feet finding familiar paving stones and wood slats of a bridge that was the crossing over a gurgling river.</p><p>Liang Mei stopped for a moment upon crossing the bridge, catching her breath again before taking up the run. She watched the other people of the colony running ahead in dismay. </p><p>Mother would criticize her for not being the first to arrive. She really wanted to impress her mother today but being in the back of the group when she returned home always brought a disappointed look into her eyes.</p><p>Just when Mei was feeling hopeless, and slow, and incapable and completely unfit to be the proud daughter of the Moon, two arms came up from behind her and lifted her shrieking up onto broad shoulders. Her shriek became a laugh and she grinned down at her father, feeling her chest fill with delight.</p><p>Liang Chao was a great man, the very best in her mind. Other men were neatly trimmed and well polished and well dressed and well mannered. But her father was rough, with coarse facial hair and tattered work clothes and a merry belly laugh that brought mirth to people’s eyes just from the sound. He was broad shouldered and strong backed, and she felt he was everything she could ever want her father to be.</p><p>You would recognize him to be their colony’s leader not from his worn clothes, but from the scars on his face, his hands, and the deep wisdom in his eyes. Many people moved to let them pass as he barreled through the streets, the people here recognized their leader, even in his coveralls with a young child on his shoulders.</p><p>Upon reaching their destination he effortlessly pulled her up over his head again and put her down almost exactly the reverse of the way she had been lifted.</p><p>“Not late this time,” he said, knowingly, and winked at her.</p><p>She grinned readily in response and he tweaked her nose playfully with his rough thumb.</p><p>Mei was very excited now. The whole central courtyard of their village was cleared to allow for the transport and she was now in the very center of it, not missing this time, and her father’s hand on her shoulder, her brothers moving through the crowd to come over and join them. Jing and Shen were tall, imposing younger and less bearded twins of her father, Jing the oldest, twenty four, was standing unmoving, but Shen, nineteen years old, gave her a knowing smile where he stood as the sound of the transporter beam filled the air.</p><p>The sparkling form of Liang Yue was a beacon of light for a moment, and finally she materialized, dressed in her black military uniform, looking delighted and proud, hands on her hips.</p><p>“Welcome home, dearest Moon,” her father was the one who spoke, and her mother gave him a wry smile, before moving over to touch his shoulder and face tenderly.</p><p>She never kissed him in public.</p><p>“I’m glad to be home. I missed my family.”</p><p>Mei carefully adjusted her footing, hopefully, presenting herself as if for inspection, as they approached, and the Moon looked over her sons first before finally considering her youngest. Her daughter.</p><p>A considerate look filled her eyes, and she smiled. She smiled!</p><p>“Well you are so very much familiar,” her mother teased. “Who could you be?”</p><p>“Mother!” Jing said, horrified, having been born with absolutely no sense of humor in Mei’s opinion.</p><p>“Oh I know who she is,” said Shen with a grin. “She is the little frog that ribbits under the lily pad.”</p><p>Oh now Mei would not stand for that. This was an important day!</p><p>“I am not a frog!” she said, and fumed.</p><p>“Oh dear,” said her father. “I think we may have found ourselves another fierce little Moon,” he smiled over at her Mother. “On seeing her, I often am reminded of you.”</p><p>Her mother’s eyes turned momentarily intense and considering, and she smiled, and nodded.</p><p>“Perhaps we have, my love,” she said, and Mei felt her heart warming over fully. “Perhaps we have.”</p><p>No daughter had ever been prouder.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Mei means Plum, or Bud (flower bud). Yue means Moon, obviously. I will let you look up the other name meanings. :)</p><p>Also, I chose the name Geonosia as a cheeky nod to Geonosis from Star Trek, where they created the clones of Jango Fett.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Living The Life Acrylic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I don't want to get myself too dug into this group, I want to make sure I don't lose any of the plot threads I've started, but this part of the plot has been begging for me to get it written, so I'll see if I can weave other characters into this somehow. I just am not sure yet how that will turn out.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tentatively, almost afraid, Dreamer stretched his arm out slowly, extending the paintbrush gently and delicately to just lightly allow the bristles to barely touch the surface of the canvas. The effect was extraordinary to his android mind, but he knew that human eyes would have more trouble catching the subtlety, and so pressed slightly more, just slightly more, Augment eyes were better than the eyes of other humans.</p><p>The tension in his shoulders released, he hadn’t been aware he had been capable of tension before, and vaguely wished he was back to the days where he didn’t ‘feel things’ as humans felt them. No tension, no fevers or sweating, no taste, no warmth…</p><p>No touch.</p><p>Dreamer felt his guilt and misery baring its ugly head as he turned to look at his sleeping companion on the couch.</p><p>Scarlett could even make couches look glamorous. She made his Sherlock Holmes PJs look sexy and not oversized. And the basic issue comforter, half off her legs, looked more cozy than any silk and down duvet could ever look, because she was under it.</p><p>Spot must have felt the same, the feline was curled up at her feet, on top of the comforter, snoozing. Spot never showed such friendly instinct towards people before. Barclay had been one of the few…</p><p>
  <em> Stop it. Don’t...don’t think of them. Don’t remember them… </em>
</p><p>Suppressing the memories of his former crew, Dreamer turned back to his painting. His new, sleeping girlfriend, was a terrible reminder of the wonderful life he left behind, as much as she was a reminder of all the sins he had committed in the act of acquiring this new ‘family’.</p><p>But he would have done it all over again. With less death, but with the same people just the same.</p><p>The canvas was giving him trouble, and he felt the soft moan of the woman on the bed as she roused. She had fallen to sleep in the bed that night in his arms, and then had come out in the middle of the night to join him in the living room after realizing he had left. Now she was asleep again. It was almost two in the morning. Maybe he should carry her back to bed?</p><p>But Ultraviolet had given them all a ‘problem to solve’, as he had called it. He had challenged them to find ways to become more unified and get more recruits, then had gone somewhere with Angel down on the planet below them looking for information about his missing friend, Ghost. Ultraviolet had been sending them updates of course, but so far nobody he had spoken to was certain of which world the Augment had been incarcerated on by the Federation, and Ultraviolet had almost used up their small cache of valuables trying to obtain more information.</p><p>Not just that, but he had also been looking for recruits...to no avail. Neutrality was a very unified group, and very pacifist, and had no interest in hostile action of any kind, even to find the Firebird. They were content to let others do the work of finding the Firebird for them. Scarlett had called them lazy.</p><p>Thistle and Clover had both been in agreement. The two Augments were so concerned with their fragile child’s health, they had both gone down to the planet to consult Neutrality doctors, and had come back disappointed. It wasn’t just the exorbitant amount of money they had asked for, the Brahms would cross universes and sell their own body parts if it meant saving their child. It was the treatment plans recommended. Full DNA resequencing, from the ground up, was all they would offer, and they had offered all sorts of packages and specializations they could pick for their child.</p><p>Genetic engineering was a product on Mistletoe, a side effect of a commerce based society. So widespread that new DNA was repackaged as much as possible to make it as attractive as possible to newcomers, with all sorts of bells and whistles. You could get neon glow in the dark hair or teeth that grew back if they fell out. Why else would anybody pay for genetic engineering in a region of space where it was common everywhere?</p><p>Clover and Thistle were fully right to want another option, their child had already inherited a large passel of enhanced DNA, they didn’t want a new baby, they wanted their current baby. With an immune system that was functional. At a price that wouldn’t cost them a kidney or two if that was possible. It was a bitter irony the new parents were having to swallow now, and another opinion would be needed before long. But it would have to wait, little Amelia was too young for any of the offered procedures, and she’d already caught and fought off one cold with a great deal of difficulty, meaning she had to stay on the respirator.</p><p>An agonizing situation for any parent to have to go through. Thistle had ripped apart the holographic doctor looking for ways to convince the staunchly proud hologram to perform genetic engineering, but the hologram had refused. Clover had put him back together afterwards without a word. Without Lewis Zimmerman’s command codes trying to reprogram the hologram was pointless.</p><p>
  <em> Augments have tempers. And sometimes go out of control. I think Thistle must have taken apart half of engineering that day just so he could have work to do. </em>
</p><p>Now here they were, in orbit around the planet Mistletoe, their nacelle almost repaired after what seemed like months of work, but had in fact only been about twelve days. Everyone was on edge that their Captain was not on the ship. And the slow going continued repairs and upgrades were boring and routine.</p><p>Dreamer sighed and looked up at the canvas. His contribution to bringing together their small group in a meaningful way was slowly taking shape, but he was balking. The fiery reds and blacks and cheerful yellows, the oranges, it was missing something, and he put his brush down at last and stepped back.</p><p>It wasn’t working.</p><p>He felt more than saw Scarlett sitting up under the blanket, his android ears detected her blinking eyelashes, and he could almost in his mind imagine her yawning red lips, lipstick smeared, her sleep tousled blond hair.</p><p>She was absolutely beautiful. He knew it wasn’t going to last. Thistle had told him as much. She was nothing like Savil and everything like trouble.</p><p>“Dreamer…” she yawned and got up to her feet, pulling the comforter around her. “You’ve been working on it all night…”</p><p>“Something isn’t working…” he said. “And I do not know what it is.”</p><p>“Maybe because you’re an android…” she said, and actually leaned up against his shoulder..</p><p>Dreamer frowned. The tendency of his new ‘crew’ to continually point out his android status had begun to bridle him quite severely. Scarlett had been one of the ones who had not been so prejudiced, and now he was confused by the uncharacteristic comment.</p><p>“I’m not sure I understand your meaning?”</p><p>“You’re trying to be accurate and perfect…” she pointed out the very real face and the very real texture of the feathers. “It's pretty, and very realistic, but it's not from your soul. Paint with your feelings. Show us how the Firebird makes you <em> feel</em>.”</p><p>Dreamer frowned. He had been trying to suppress his more extreme feelings. If he felt, he hurt. She must have realized this, for she dropped the blanket and put two arms around his waist to give her face a better perch on his shoulder.</p><p>“Dreamer, they were your family for ten years, you miss them, it isn’t healthy not to express what you feel…”</p><p>He lowered the brush until it was by his side, loose in his fingers, and looked at the canvas, the perfectly created image there was almost an accusation.</p><p>It wasn’t a firebird to his mind. It was a peacock, a proud and arrogant pretty thing, so perfect, so haughty and overconfident. It was not who they were.</p><p>It was not the Brotherhood of Ashes.</p><p>Scarlett seemed to sense the change in him, as she moved away from him a little, and he bristled a little at her caution. Augments were constantly aware of the unstable emotions of their counterparts, and were almost instinctively cautious not wanting to provoke violence.</p><p>This was the life into which he had been led by his programming. And everything was wrong. Everything he did was wrong. Nothing ever worked out right. His partner was wrong. His crew was wrong. Since the Firebird program had activated, everything in his life had changed, in the negative.</p><p>A fiery Augment-like fury suddenly rose into him and he stabbed his brush into the pot of red and slashed the orange peacock on the canvas, drawing first blood. His temper boiled, and he could almost feel internally the howl of anger he gave, ignoring the startlement of his companion and attacking the canvas with all the anger and rage he had been holding back.</p><p>“My friends are dead! We are stuck out here in the middle of nowhere!” he snarled and charged upon the canvas, red and orange swirls and fiery slashes lashing fiercely upon the delicate fabric frame. “We d-don’t know where this Ghost is, the Brahms child is ill…” he slashed again as he stumbled over the contraction, his anger dedicated to the small infant that had been struggling every day to survive as he lashed with the paintbrush again and again, the pots of paint trembled and clattering as he stabbed them and stabbed again and again. “And we are no closer today to finding the Firebird than we were when we started!” he slashed again and the tears erupted and he gritted his teeth. “Our nacelle is repaired and nothing has come of our being here. What the hell are we still even doing in orbit?”</p><p>He collapsed, a sobbing miserable mess and wrapped his arms around himself.</p><p>“And she…” he swallowed, and cried, shoulders shaking.</p><p>“She?” Scarlett knew, but knelt down next to him anyway, her eyes cautious, and concerned.</p><p>“Savil…” Dreamer swallowed his misery at the voice. “She has not filed for divorce. The Federation News Service…” he pointed with his brush at the canvas, imagining in front of him the console where he had read the news. “Said that my...my family is begging me to turn myself in, to just come home…and instead I am here, I am here.”</p><p>Again he collapsed into sobbing, and Scarlett held him, but her arms were not Savil’s and he could derive little comfort from them. She leaned her chin onto the top of his head and looked up at his battered canvas, and Dreamer felt her soft release of breath.</p><p>Upon the canvas was a whirling spiral of fiery lashing flames, the phoenix with wings curling rising from the center, a Firebird filled with rage, and anger, challenging the viewer to a duel with blazing eyes, a lashing and volatile creature of fury and defiance.</p><p>“Now that,” Scarlett said softly, pointing to the shape on the canvas. “Is a Firebird…”</p><p>Dreamer shivered, looking at his own creation, an emotional, beautiful, and powerful reminder of all they had sacrificed, and how deeply wild their emotions ran now. Everything was at stake, like the creature upon the canvas they would rise to challenge and burn to ashes anyone who tried to stand in their way.</p><p>“Will it be enough of a symbol to unite our Faction?”</p><p>“If not our Faction, all of them,” Scarlett kissed the top of his head, and he briefly felt guilty for raging about his wife in her presence.</p><p>He turned around to look at her, the tears gone but the pain still very real.</p><p>“I need you,” he said softly. “In my life, at this moment...and I fear I have frightened you away.”</p><p>She laughed, and put her playful arms around his neck to kiss him.</p><p>“You can’t frighten me away, I’m an Augment. Anger is something I very much understand.”</p><p>Soon he was lost again in the heat of her arms, in the softness of her skin, and very much relieved that he had finally been able to give life to the fire inside his chest, marked forever upon the canvas.</p><p>The passion of all his dreams and nightmares had now come to life in acrylic. It was all he could have ever hoped for.</p><hr/><p>Ultraviolet stumbled off of the transporter pad exhausted, and was grateful to find Thistle there waiting to catch him and help right him.</p><p>“Well?” said the man, looking up in concerned hostility at the third person on the pad standing next to Angel.</p><p>Trust would not be earned easily.</p><p>“Introductions first,” said Ultraviolet, and he opened his hand towards the tall newcomer. “This is Tinker, the leader of the Tinkers Faction. He said he’ll see if he can help us repair the damage to Dreamer, and if he can’t do it himself, he will help us rescue Ghost.”</p><p>Tinker was a very tall, bald man in greasy coveralls and a heavy long jacket, who covered his head in a handkerchief, mostly to cover what Ultraviolet knew was a very nasty scarred patch where a cybernetic implant had once been. Tinker was no longer a Borg, but he wasn’t all that happy to share his former assimilated status with others. The story of his escaping the Romulan de-assimilation camp where he had ended up was worth earning his trust long enough just to hear it. He made no show now that he was in any way put out by his former situation, or by the looks of distrust he was being given. He was a very quiet man.</p><p>“I see,” Thistle looked up, the distrust in his eyes obvious. “And what will we owe him?”</p><p>“A new ship…” Ultraviolet stated pointedly, watching the tall, silent Augment come down off the pad. “Not a shuttlecraft either…something with durability and weapons installed.”</p><p>“Dominion busted my last one,” said Tinker, but that was all he said, and he offered his hand to Thistle to shake.</p><p>For a moment, the engineer seemed concerned, severely distrusting, then nodded, and shook the hand. Angel waited passively by the side.</p><p>“I think you two, three,” Thistle corrected himself pointedly. “Need to come with me to ten forward for a drink…” he smiled broadly. “You need to see what Dreamer has been painting since you’ve been gone…”</p><p>“Dreamer can paint?” Angel looked confused and Thistle actually laughed.</p><p>The unspoken ‘like a human’ did not need to be said. Computers could paint. Holograms could paint. Painting with human emotion and passion was a different matter entirely.</p><p>“Yep, he certainly surprised me,” Thistle took a deep breath. “He’s made us an image for our Faction to use instead of the Fed symbols...you gotta see it.”</p><p>“Tell Dreamer and the others we’ll have a meeting there in...ten minutes?” Ultraviolet guessed and stretched up his shoulders a little. “I need to stop by my quarters for a moment, and change my clothes…sonic shower...drink something that has alcohol in it...”</p><p>“If you need a spot, drinks are on Scarlett,” Thistle teased. “She found a cache of Romulan ale stashed under the bar.”</p><p>Tinker seemed to like this, for he immediately smiled and proceeded out of the transporter room, with long plodding steps, and Thistle pointedly followed him. The unstable engineer wouldn’t trust their new passenger entirely at first, and that was fine. Angel helpfully went with them and Ultraviolet found his familiar footsteps out onto the ship and away from the others with relief.</p><p>Mistletoe was a cold world, and he had never enjoyed cold worlds. He was happy to be back on his ship again. He had gone from tavern to tavern in the falling snow, looking for people and faces he remembered, and had finally gotten a message that Tinker was on the planet looking for <em> him</em>. Reminding him of old debts, of course.</p><p>
  <em> And so it goes...the Tinkers are all painfully skilled engineers and complex computer designers, if anyone can fix Dreamer, it would be Tinker. Tinker is going to be helping the Thread create those un-hackable personal PADDs for us to use in place of the Federation standards, and he’s got a clever idea for making that work. </em>
</p><p>By the time he made his way to ten forward, almost forty minutes had passed. He cursed his slowness, but he wasn’t going to let them see him at his worst, he wanted to present to them a proud and confident Captain who was doing his best.</p><p>Because he had discovered the worst possible news as he had been searching the planet. Shepherd had emptied Cold Station 12 of its embryonic cache, and it wouldn’t be long until an army of Augments was marching across planet Earth. Colony 53 was being even more secured and isolated by the Federation and there would soon be an uprising there. Moon had returned to her colony to regroup, having gathered more Augments from Moab IV to join her Faction. Which meant Rebirth would be raring for a new battleground.</p><p>And the Psi Faction had plans to liberate the children of Darwin. He had stumbled across one of the telepathic members of that Faction whilst travelling between taverns, knee deep in the snow and completely frustrated. The silent woman had sent him the soft spoken thought, straight into his mind, warning him to stay away from Darwin, and then had fled.</p><p>
  <em> Darwin’s Augments and their dangerous aggressive immune systems are a dangerous gamble.  </em>
</p><p>He severely hoped that the steady minded telepathic Psi Faction would keep them quarantined somewhere safe and peaceful...and not use them as a weapon for war. But he wouldn’t count on it. Psi would probably side with Shepherd and the Children of Khan in the end, if only to keep themselves safe from the anti-Telepath virus on earth that was in all probability the creation of Shepherd himself. Ultraviolet could almost guarantee it.</p><p>The doors of ten forward opened and he was greeted with the sound of laughter and merriment, and his chest filled with warmth and hope at the sight of his crew, <em> his </em> crew, seated around one table, all joking and talking together, and telling the newcomer Tinker all about themselves.</p><p>It was always Christmas on Mistletoe, and his crew had gotten into the festive spirit despite the fact that it was still November. Ten Forward had been decorated for celebration, with paper decorations and a real, replicated green Christmas tree decorated with colorful bobbles and silver tinsel garlands. Lights were blinking cheerfully from its many pine boughs.</p><p>Ultraviolet stood back for a moment, smiling and feeling his pride. Beautiful Scarlett, dressed in green, looking like she would have been well at home on the world he had just left in her fluffy oversized holiday themed sweater. Angel, in contrast, was still dressed in her black bodysuit and leather jacket, standing beside the newcomer, and giving the Romulan ale some uncertain looks. She was like a shadow. Ultraviolet would have to make sure she tried some of the ale, she needed to learn to lighten up a little now and then. She was often way too serious about the smallest of things. </p><p>Dreamer, looking sad and yet smiling, was slowly relating to Tinker his own story of being found on Omicron Theta. Someone had replicated him a very nice blue sweater with a white snowflake motif. Ultraviolet was now envious and upset that he wasn’t also dressed for the holidays.</p><p>Jeeves was also dressed for the occasion, in a red Santa sweater, the merry mirror to Scarlett’s green, and seemed to be ignoring everything, taking tentative sips of Romulan ale and looking out at the planet outside the window and not at others. Ultraviolet wondered what the insular Augment was thinking.</p><p>Tinker and Clover sat side by side, with their baby being held on her mother’s knee. The tiny form with her assistive breathing device was a sore feeling in his chest and he swore he would get them somewhere with a Federation doctor, no matter what the risk, and no matter the irony. The doctors on Mistletoe should have shown more compassion and spent more time working with the patient. Their answer of excessive amounts of genetic engineering for every small problem was alarming to him.</p><p>
  <em> Being genetically engineered means we aren’t used to the idea of having a ‘sick’ Augment. Too arrogant in our belief that our DNA is perfect. Our faults are more obvious the more and more I spend time on this world. Are we fighting for nothing, if we can’t even treat one of our own children? Or is Neutrality becoming too much like Ferenginar, greedy for latinum? </em>
</p><p>But the problem would wait. A few eyes were watching him now, and he decidedly approached the subject of this gathering itself, the canvas on its easel display sitting on a separate table near the Christmas tree and very much the centerpiece of the room.</p><p>It was breathtaking in its simplicity and energy. It would translate well into combadge form, and onto flags, and would very much be a symbol people would rally around. People would be drawn to join their Faction by the very image of the whirling Firebird, a defiant and powerful ruler, rallying them to his call.</p><p>Dreamer had stood to his feet to come over and join him, and was now hovering hesitantly beside the canvas, uncertainty in his eyes.</p><p>“Dreamer, this is perfection,” Ultraviolet said, giving a clap. “Nicely done.”</p><p>It wasn’t just his imagination, but Dreamer’s reaction to his comment was an almost painful and forced smile, as if his comment had pulled up some painful memory he hadn't expected.</p><p>“Thank you.” </p><p>Ultraviolet felt that this problem was probably not one he could solve himself, instead gave the android a reassuring pat on the shoulder and turned to join the rest of his crew, waiting at the table for him to join them. Romulan ale was a wonderful relief after all the cold weather, and the laughing company, and the replicated assortment of chocolates Scarlett surprised them with was a sure sign that they were all starting to feel like life was getting back to normal again.</p><p>Goodness knows they would need to remember this moment of respite in the days to come. Mistletoe was a cold planet, and he now was almost entirely certain he knew where Ghost was being held, and that planet, that prison world, was much, much colder.</p><hr/><p>“Nope.”</p><p>Dreamer felt his own frustration at the comment and sighed as the cable connected to the back of his head was pointedly removed by the silent man.</p><p>“No good,” said Tinker, shaking his head, and silently rolled up the cable.</p><p>Next to him, Scarlett and Thistle had been waiting for him to finish his work, also quietly checking his work for themselves. Nobody was still all that trusting of the new passenger, least of which Dreamer himself who had to trust this stranger inside of his head.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Thistle said, giving them the opening they needed to talk to the tall man, who was almost impossible to have a conversation with.</p><p>He just preferred to listen, rather than speak.</p><p>“The chip is fine,” said Tinker. “But the connections are fused. Removing it will definitely damage him irreparably. But you need to remove the chip to repair the connections...you need Ghost,” he wiped his hands on his coveralls front as if he had been working on a greasy engine rather than the delicate cybernetic meshwork of Dreamer’s brain. “Ghost knew everything Soong did.”</p><p>Dreamer nodded and felt the back of his head being closed by Scarlett, who put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.</p><p>“Well now we know for certain, we need to find this Ghost fellow,” Thistle sighed. “If he’s still alive.”</p><p>“He’s still alive, we get word from time to time,” Tinker shrugged. “Best cyberneticist the Tinkers ever had…”</p><p>“He’s a Tinker?” Scarlett said, momentarily startled. “I thought he was one of us?”</p><p>“Ghost is Ghost,” Tinker shrugged again, and silently gathered up his tools. “He goes where he goes, and helps who he helps and is there and then gone again.”</p><p>“Like a ghost,” Thistle said, grinning. “Well, let's hope he’s still easy to get to.”</p><p>“Ultraviolet believes he might be in Klingon space,” Tinker said. “It's what we heard when we spoke to Silas Pronta. But Pronta helped the Feds send Ghost to prison in the first place, so who knows if he was telling the truth.”</p><p>It was an unsatisfying conclusion, but at least Tinker would be staying on the ship to help them rescue the redoubtable Augment cyberneticist.</p><p>
  <em> And all we have to do is buy him a new ship...with our now almost nonexistent funds. Ultraviolet, what are you planning to do next? </em>
</p><p>He was almost afraid to find out.</p><hr/><p>“Rura Penthe.” </p><p>It was almost a collective intake of breath at the pronouncement, and Angel knew that Ultraviolet was unsatisfied and severely angry at his own spoken words. They were all assembled in the cargo bay they were using as storage, and she watched him pace and stomp around the area in a peak, examining all the bins of their collected replicatables and sighing.</p><p>“All this into the recycler, it's worthless,” he sighed and looked around. “We’ll need Starfleet Security prisoner transport uniforms replicated for this. I want a shuttlecraft altered with a new name and number…” he then made his way over to their group to stand in front of Thistle in consideration.</p><p>Angel looked with him towards Thistle, Clover currently absent in the sickbay caring for her baby. Ultraviolet shook his head, Thistle clearly didn’t measure up in some way, and he plodded over to look over Jeeves, who raised his head silently, almost hopeful. Again Ultraviolet shook his head and sighed.</p><p>“Well,” he said, and handed his PADD to Dreamer. “This is the Federation prison records for our friend Ghost. As he was, almost eighteen years ago. A long time, to be held in a Klingon prison camp without any security images or records to go by to show us how he looks <em> now</em>.”</p><p>Dreamer stood next to Scarlett, looking confused, and uncertain, and passed along the PADD, each person in turn looking it over. Angel gave the man’s face a good long study when it was her turn with the PADD. Ghost was Doctor Noonian Soong’s only apprentice, before being arrested, and the man who held all their hopes for finding the Firebird inside of his head. His record showed that he was tall, heavy set and strong. Long brown hair and a goatee and deep green eyes. Eighteen years ago he had been a strong man at least. What was his situation now after eighteen years on the icy prison world of Rura Penthe?</p><p>Rura Penthe was little more than an ice ball with armored doors that lead into the caves where the prisoners lived and an energy dome that kept anything that was inside from getting out. This was where Klingons sent their most dangerous criminals. And the Federation washed their hands of Augments once outside of Federation space.</p><p><em> Damn, </em>Angel suddenly realized the problem they were up against.</p><p>Klingons were very much their match in pure physical strength. Infiltrating the compound would be hard, let alone finding one prisoner amongst thousands. Only the fact that he was human would help them at all. Jeeves wasn’t strong enough, he was engineered to serve, not fight. Thistle and Angel themselves would have to drive the shuttlecraft to act as the fake Starfleet security officers, and hopefully take down the energy dome themselves so that they could escape once Ghost was located. She could almost see in her mind the crew that Ultraviolet was going to assemble for this mission. Scarlett would be in charge of operations while they were off the ship, or assisting Clover in engineering.</p><p>Angel felt her chest constricting and looked over at Tinker. The tall man was not going to go that far for them, he was such a well known criminal to the Klingons, who would only execute him, or send him back to Federation space to stand trial there anyways. It would not do. It just would not do. Jeeves and Tinker would be running the ship, and possibly fighting off Klingons if any other ships showed up.</p><p>The mission now needed someone who would not be recognized to act as a ‘prisoner’ to actually go inside the prison and find the man they would be beaming out once the dome was down. Someone who they could change to look like anyone they wanted.</p><p>“Dreamer,” said Ultraviolet, sounding even less happy than he looked. “Do you think you would be able to recognize Ghost in a crowd, if he was eighteen years older?”</p><p>Dreamer took the PADD again to examine, his eyebrows going up to his hair.</p><p>“I do believe so,” he said, with quiet confidence.</p><p>Ultraviolet nodded, and stalked over to the bins again and leaned against them.</p><p>“It's become clear to me now, that the Talarians have had the last laugh with me,” he said. “The doctors on Mistletoe tell me that my genetic code is breaking down. Perhaps this was the Talarians way of hobbling me to keep me from escaping. But it will kill me if left untreated.”</p><p>Scarlett actually gasped, and Ultraviolet looked up at all of them, all of hell and pain in his violet eyes.</p><p>“I am not going to survive unless I go back down to the planet and start treatment now with the geneticists. Which means I have to trust you all to do this mission without me,” he swallowed. “We need our Ghost, fast, before word gets back to the Federation and the Klingons that we are looking for him and they move him where we cannot reach. I will stay on board as long as I can to help you prepare, then beam down when you leave.”</p><p>Angel watched him go back over to Dreamer with almost a joking light in his eyes.</p><p>“Dreamer, go directly to jail,” he said, and grinned to show he was indeed joking. “Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”</p><p>There was a smattering of nervous laughter, and Dreamer smiled, having gotten the ‘joke’.</p><p>“We’ll return with Boardwalk and Park Place in our cargo,” he said, and more chuckles followed.</p><p>But the obvious fear they all felt was palpable. They would be risking Dreamer’s life to save his life, and all their hopes depended on it.</p><p>“All right people,” Ultraviolet clapped his hands together firmly. “Let's get to work.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I've been in a festive mood, despite the lack of snow where I am. I want fuzzy sweaters and hot cocoa and carols for Christmas. That is all.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Sending Messages</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I realized as I was writing this that the first section for the funeral should have been added in Gathering Fires, not here, but I'll keep it in both in case people don't see the update I made to the last part.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Captain Jean-Luc Picard stood silently at attention, feeling his chest hurting in a way he hadn’t been expecting it to, and for once he wasn’t feeling at all uncomfortable in his dress uniform. He was feeling as if he couldn’t dress up enough. Nothing they could do could make this ceremony more formal enough to satisfy him, or relieve him of the empty place that existed inside of his aching soul.</p><p>Worf’s howl of warning to Sto-Vo-Kor began the proceedings, as they all had agreed, allowing them the dignity of a following silence as Admiral Ross read the names of the dead. Here present were the remaining <em> Enterprise </em>personnel, the crews of the fleet ships that were still docked at the station, as well as the Federation civilians on board DS9.</p><p>All of them were standing in respectful silence of the rows of coffins with their flags. The empty torpedo tubes in the center of the cramped cargo bay, practically touching each other was an accusation. It had taken some time to prepare this funeral, because there had been a lot of funerals, but this one was specifically for the<em> Enterprise </em> crew members who had been on board the <em> Enterprise </em>when they died. Maybe it was the size of the cargo bay, but it seemed like such a small funeral. It wasn’t enough.</p><p>Geordi Laforge. Reginald Barclay. Rhodes. Jenkins. Perry. The names were all a blur now as Admiral Ross spoke them. But the first two stood out to Picard. Two very good men. Good officers and good engineers.</p><p>But Geordi’s best friend was not here. Picard would not and could not rest until he knew why Data had flown. The investigation was still ongoing but he knew he would not be satisfied until he had spoken to his first officer face to face.</p><p>And he still considered the man his First Officer. He would do so until all the evidence and his own investigations have proven otherwise</p><p>Several heads rose suddenly in alarm when the doors of the cargo bay opened and in walked four Bajoran Vedics, and it was apparent, immediately, it wasn’t just the Vedics.</p><p>Doctor Bashir and Major Kira entered after the Vedics, followed by Odo and many of his deputies, the Bajoran Medical nurses and staff, and soon most of the Bajoran officers on the station had crowded into the cargo bay. And the group didn’t end there. Two children entered the cargo bay with a Bajoran flag, which they carried over to the front of the group of tubes and laid out on the floor. Several more children entered to lay flowers on the flag on the ground, and around the bases of the coffins.</p><p>And all the while, as the children did this, the adults were quietly chanting, the Bajoran funeral chant, in unison, eyes closed, hands held up, and voices soft so as to not be intrusive. Even Doctor Bashir, his head down and his face a mask of sorrow.</p><p>Picard felt his own tears before he realized he still had any tears left to shed. Troi buried her beautiful face into Riker’s shoulder and the tall stolid man was choking back his own response. Crusher was just sobbing and Worf put a consoling hand on her shoulder.</p><p>Feelings couldn’t be spoken in words. It was so respectfully caring, and so completely Bajoran a response that Picard could not stop himself from smiling, just a little.</p><p>No, they were not done mourning here. And there was a lot of work to do to ensure justice for his fallen crew. A lot of questions still needed to be answered.</p><p>But Bajor was with them. The Federation was not without friends in this crisis. They would endure.</p><p>Picard knew Bajoran funeral chants could last for days, but the Bajorans used a more truncated form and came to a respectful silence.</p><p>And as one they all stood there, in respectful silence for the dead, a unified family, and now the cramped cargo bay seemed as wide and full of the power of their gathering as the Sydney Opera House. Nothing anyone could do could break this feeling of community and unity.</p><p>Nothing.</p><hr/><p>As crowded as a prison could be, being in the line for prison visits was worse. Having a full body scan, an ID scan, and an eye scan, was slow going and predictable. Going over prison rules and rules for visitors was predictable. He was utterly bored by the entire process. And the prison staff, giving him strange looks, simply waved off any questions and shrugged at his unspoken mental suggestions to just let him in.</p><p>Selvelvians had a knack for mind control. Triv could convince everyone around him he was a fluffy kitten, and they would believe him.</p><p>As it was, he was convincing them he was a counsellor coming here to discuss probation options with a prisoner. His fake ID passed muster, and he retrieved his visitors materials and PADD, and entered the compound.</p><p>Humans were soft. It was this thought that made him waver momentarily and consider. The New Zealand Penal Colony was a prison for low risk prisoners, and it was little more than a fence surrounding a nice compound of houses and rehabilitation centers. A gymnasium, a library, a computer center and a re-education type school...no brick piles. No big boulders to break or large loads to carry. No vicious officers standing over you barking orders. No overcrowded barracks. No daily violence amongst the prisoners, no scrounging up every tiny last morsel of food in hopes of eating something every day. No rape. No sleeping in a corner in hopes that nobody would kill you in your sleep.</p><p>Triv closed his eyes. Maybe the Federation wasn’t so bad?</p><p>The Rot reminded him of his mission right at that moment by squirreling a painful snake of agony through his intestines up into his liver and he stabilized himself by walking out into the compound, searching for his quarry. Bashir, Richard. That was his name, or it was probably reversed. Triv hated that tendency of paperwork in the Federation to list the family name first and ignore proper name order. He was certain they would list him as ‘Dochen, Triv’ on his death certificate and it bothered him more than it probably should have.</p><p>But Triv didn’t have anything left. As far as targets went, this one was easy. He’d been in so many prisons so very much not like this in his life, and he knew the way of them. This one wasn’t so different, despite how soft it was. The computers listed Bashir as being in the library and it wasn’t hard to get into. He just walked right on in.</p><p>It was almost too easy. People this soft and honest couldn’t be entirely wrong, could they? He reconsidered his motives, but found no compromises. He didn’t have much time left, and treatment and drugs were expensive, his daughter would need the medicine that he himself had been denied over the years and he was going to guarantee it got to her one way or another.</p><p>Richard Bashir was a middle aged man, with gray hair and a mustache, squat build, and not remarkable in any way. He sat at a table, bent over a big sheath of papers, a bit of black lead in hand, fingers stained dark, and was going over the lines of his piece with careful accuracy.</p><p>Triv wavered. Selvelvians considered artistic expression a religious experience, and he didn’t want to kill a man in the middle of a religious experience. Were drawings by criminals considered holy? The drawings were very very accurate, and very good. Which building was Bashir drawing? Or was this one of his own designs? Was he drawing from inspiration? He really hoped that God would forgive him for preventing the drawing’s completion.</p><p>Bashir suddenly realized he was being watched for he raised his head to look at him.</p><p>“Can I help you?”</p><p>Triv decided he was very very glad there would be no blood this time. Those drawings were beautiful enough to deserve preservation, even incomplete.</p><p>With the swiftness of a viper, before the man could even cry out in fear, he struck, with a massive telepathic attack that blocked every blood vessel in the elder human’s brain.</p><p>The human lurched, gave a scream of pain and horror, and slumped down onto the table on top of his drawing. At once Triv was surrounded by security staff, but it was already too late. He was already swallowing the poison pellet embedded in his tooth, and just waited for death to take him with a smile.</p><p>His family was waiting.</p><hr/><p>“From what we were able to learn from the Selvelvian government, Triv Dochen was an on again off again repeat drug offender, twenty-eight years old,” Admiral Ross’s face was a tense mask as he gave them the report. “After killing Richard Bashir he swallowed a poison pellet, and the autopsy shows his case of Selvelvian Rot was severely terminal, how he managed to even stand up with so much cancer in his body is anybody’s guess. He left behind one four year old daughter on his homeworld, no other family.”</p><p>Sisko sat back in his chair and looked around the room. Ross had made sure to tell Julian Bashir and Sisko in private what had happened first before calling this meeting. Sisko was grateful, he wanted his staff informed of what was going on but neither man had wanted another public fugue for Bashir. After Garak’s death, videos of his Augment driven screaming had made their way online and had fuelled quite a few conspiracy theories amongst Kai Winn’s still faithfully devoted followers. She was now a martyr. But for Sisko, she would always be a headache.</p><p>But no fugue seemed forthcoming yet. The Doctor sat with his eyes staring at the table, hands gripping the edge of it, shaking head to toe. His initial reaction had been dumbfounded silence and horror. He still hadn’t said a word, and had only nodded or shook his head to questions the two men had asked before Ross had called for the DS9 command staff to arrive.</p><p>“Sisko to counsellor Telnorri, please report to the wardroom…” Sisko watched Bashir start a little at his comment, and O’Brien put a hand on his friend’s shoulder to steady him.</p><p>“Julian, we’re here for you,” the engineer said staunchly.</p><p>“I just don’t...understand why a Selevlvian would want to hurt dad…” he said shakily. “I’m trying to <em> help </em> them.”</p><p>“Admiral, do you have any idea of what the motive could have been?” Sisko said softly, wanting some closure of any sort that might help his chief medical officer deal with this personal tragedy.</p><p>It was hard to bring a killer to justice when the killer took his own life. </p><p>“From what we learned, Dochen was a devout follower of The Great Walk,” Ross said. “A religion very widespread over Selvelvia that declares The Rot as God’s punishment for Selvelvian sins in this world. Those who are part of the religion are called Walkers, those who are Walking towards God.”</p><p>“Specifically, many followers of The Great Walk believe those with the Rot must prove their worthiness to enter the afterlife in some way before they can die,” Odo inserted helpfully. “Practitioners with the Rot who have completed the tasks they believe fulfill this requirement can then commit ritual suicide.”</p><p>“Dochen may have felt that killing Richard Bashir, the father of someone interfering with his God’s punishment, was a worthy task,” said Kira, softly.</p><p>It was notable that this comment had come from her, the most religiously faithful person of their group. But it wasn’t enough to console the Doctor, who still looked like he couldn’t believe what was happening and was going to lose his head.</p><p>Ben really needed to hear Dax’s input and Dax was not here. She was currently on patrol with the <em> Titan</em>, as was Worf on the <em> Defiant</em>, the two ships keeping an eye out for Dominion activity, and so here taking both their places for the moment was S’Vek, looking perturbed where he sat next to the Doctor, as unwelcome amongst Sisko’s crew as he ever had been.</p><p>“A telepathic Selvlelvian at risk of contracting the Psionic Virus must have been desperate to risk going to Earth to kill one man,” said S’Vek smartly. “He must have been hired by someone, someone with money and promises to care for that remaining relative.”</p><p>“A good possibility,” said Sisko with a sigh.</p><p>He was grateful when Telnorri arrived and sat next to Bashir immediately. This Bajoran woman had a very calming presence, and he could already feel the tension leaving the room as she quietly counselled Bashir not to hold back his feelings. Fortunately there was no fugue for Julian, just that severe trembling and a stream of tears and sobbing that Kira responded to by giving Bashir one of her own hankies from her pockets. Bajorans were practical like that.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Doctor,” said Ross from the viewscreen. “As soon as I have more information I can give it to you. But you can understand now why I said your research was dangerous?”</p><p>“A cure would interfere with their cultural practices,” Bashir said brokenly, trying and mostly failing to recover his composure. “We’re getting close, me and Crusher…”</p><p>“She’s gonna have trouble for it,” said Ross tensely. “Her opponents in Starfleet Medical are already on their high pulpets decrying all of her work.”</p><p>“If we can prove that the Selvelvian Rot itself was a result of genetic engineering then they will all be eating crow,” Bashir said, angry tears coming up again in his eyes. “If anyone thinks this is going to frighten me out of helping millions of people they are severely wrong about who I am.”</p><p>Sisko felt almost the collective release of breath and amazement from his crew. S’Vek had a look that seemed almost as if he was impressed. That Julian Bashir was still willing to help Selvelvia, after this…</p><p>
  <em> Well of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be? His medicine has always been about the end result; saving lives, there was never anything else in his mind. </em>
</p><p>“I am severely concerned by the very idea of the Rot being a result of bio-warfare,” said Ross largely. “I’ve thus told Bajor that Starfleet is going to give you some space to research this and hold back on our petition to end genetic research on Bajor.”</p><p>“Is this the official position?” Sisko asked, feeling his own smile, the first since he’d heard the news.</p><p>“It is now,” Ross took a deep breath. “I’m in charge of the Bajoran front so long as Starfleet Headquarters is under quarantine. Besides, I’m sure they are just as curious about this as I am.”</p><p>“Genetic engineering is permitted by Starfleet Medical to be used as a cure for the effects of bio-weaponry,” Bashir actually smiled, almost ironically. “I just hope there is still evidence left to find, after all these years all the original creators of the Rot will have passed away and those that followed them would have covered their tracks.”</p><p>“I may be able to help with that,” said S’Vek, startling them all. “I’ll make some discreet calls to see what I can discover.”</p><p>“Really?” Bashir seemed skeptical.</p><p>“I, too, am curious,” said S’Vek cryptically. “Especially as to your concerns about who may have been responsible for creating the Rot in the first place.”</p><p>“Well, there’s more than one potential culprit,” Bashir said nervously.</p><p>Sisko considered the Vulcan for a moment and paused. Bashir had told Sisko Doctor Crusher’s suspicions about Vulcans in private. Either S’Vek knew about their conversation or he was a better spy than he’d given the man credit for.</p><p>“Anything you can find that can help the Doctor will be appreciated,” Sisko said, and stood up to show the meeting was over. “Thank you Admiral.”</p><p>“Thank you,” said Ross. “And again, my condolences, Doctor.”</p><p>“Thank you,” said Bashir quietly, and he covered his face with hands, leaning forward on the table.</p><p>The viewscreen blipped off, and everyone hesitantly stood to their feet.</p><p>“Julian, is there anything we can do?” said O’Brien quietly.</p><p>“I just want to be alone right now,” Bashir said. “I really don’t know what to say or do really. We can’t have a funeral since I can’t travel to Earth and mum can’t leave Earth during the lockdown.”</p><p>“Well, you are a Bajoran now,” said Kira, as much hopefully as an attempt to be helpful. “You’ll always be welcome in the temple. And...for the record, Frim and Jak have both been poking me to remind you of temple duty,” before the Doctor could take offense, she added. “Overseeing the funeral rights of a family member is a tradition they can teach you. You already know the words for the chant.”</p><p>“Sounds like a good idea to me,” said Telnorri. “Why don’t I go with you? If it becomes all too much I’ll be there to help.”</p><p>Sisko was relieved when Bashir gave no objection, and once the wardroom had mostly cleared out he pulled S’Vek aside, giving the confused Vulcan a strong look.</p><p>“We can’t let any of Doctor Crusher’s suspicions about the culprit of the Rot get out, we have a very tense relationship with Selvelvia right now and can’t afford to lose them. Be very very discreet.”</p><p>“Certainly,” said S’Vek, taking a deep breath. “But, for the record, I am certain most Vulcans will want the truth to be out and the air cleared.”</p><p>“Perhaps, and perhaps clearing the air will help mend fences with Selvelvia, but until we know for certain we don’t want wild speculation to run rampant…”</p><p>“Of course,” S’Vek nodded, and turned to leave.</p><p>Sisko gave Odo a look as the Vulcan passed by, knowing the long eared Odo could configure his ear internally to give him ample hearing range, and knew he wouldn’t need to give Odo any more information or instructions.</p><p>The silent accusation of the empty room was too much for him to bear, and he was still struggling to find a meaning in this place, this station, this command. Dax had made him promise not to travel anywhere without her, and she had to finish her training under Counsellor Troi in order to take a new assignment.</p><p>But they would go. He would bring Jake with them. They would travel to the place he had been seeing in his dreams for night after sleepless night since Jadzia’s death.</p><p>A planet called Tyree.</p><hr/><p>S’Vek suppressed his natural human instinct of frustration, and told the Romulan side of him to cool down. There would be no need for any hystronics today, bureaucracy was not a logical cause for overreaction. In fact, there were no logical reasons for overreaction, hence the definition of the term ‘<em>over </em>reaction’. However, the viewscreen in front of him was an accusation of failure and he sat back in his chair and sighed.</p><p><em>Sentinel</em> was down needing some repairs and he was tense. Lieutenant Ramirs was now filing a lawsuit against the Federation on behalf of her parents alleging negligence resulting in her sister’s death. The lawsuit would perhaps result in some small token law, promising to check hospital zones before transporting, which was already standard policy to begin with, but there would be no further advancement of her cause beyond that, and she was already suspected of being an Augment, which made her petition risky.</p><p>Perhaps they would call the new policy ‘Haley’s Law’. It certainly sounded like a sympathetic cause.</p><p>Less sympathetic were his feelings towards the Vulcan scientists he had been trying to contact, the relatives of former researchers on Vulcan, the heads he had been butting against trying to get information about genetic engineering research on Vulcan during the Federation’s founding.</p><p>How fooled he had been. How naive, to believe Vulcans would all want to do the right thing. Who knew there were so many Vulcans who preferred to save face rather than fulfill their duty to the law and Vulcan traditions of honesty and respect for other cultures?</p><p>He had been calling people for hours now, and had hit on this silence, and was wondering if he would be better off taking the <em> Sentinel </em> out on patrol again, even needing repairs. He needed to deal with the results of his Grandmother’s DNA before it became someone else’s problem.</p><p>But he had one more person to contact, and several Vulcans had been certain this man was related to the head geneticist at the time of the Federation’s founding. And another one of this man’s ancestors had been involved in the negotiations to bring Selvelvia into the Federation. Two connections to the situation that were one too many to be a coincidence as far as S’Vek was concerned. He tapped in the communication codes carefully, and waited. It took a few transfers from helpful ensigns and not so helpful secretaries but he was able to finally reach the man, Sanel, on Vulcan as it happened, and currently also working as a geneticist as his ancestor had been.</p><p>“Good afternoon,” said Sanel. “I’m sorry but I’m very busy so you’ll have to make this quick.”</p><p>“I won’t take too much of your time,” said S’Vek. “My name is Commander S’Vek, and I’m searching for information…”</p><p>“I know who you are, I’ve gotten no less than twenty communications from Vulcans concerned about your interest in Vulcan’s genetic engineering history,” said the Vulcan hastily. “I cannot help you…”</p><p>S’Vek sensed another wall was going to be firmly raised in front of him, and finally decided it might be time to try Sisko’s suggested tactic of using his family members as leverage. He didn’t particularly enjoy being associated with the redoubtable Ambassador, but he wasn’t above using his name to complete a mission.</p><p>“I’m sorry to hear this, my father said that he was always able to get support from your office in the past…”</p><p>“I’m sorry, I’m not certain I recall ever meeting your father…”</p><p>“Well certainly not, the Ambassador is a very busy man, but most people would remember meeting him,” said S’Vek.</p><p>“Ambassador?”</p><p>Sanel was right to be confused. His adoptive father was currently listed as being a science teacher. You needed the right clearance to see his birth parents in his file.</p><p>“Yes, he’s currently negotiating our Reunification with Romulus…” S’Vek said not so subtly and he knew the moment that recognition fell across the other Vulcan’s face for he froze and then bent his nose down a little, as if trying to examine him across the viewscreen.</p><p>“Well,” said Sanel. “Well, perhaps I could do a little bit of digging for you…”</p><p><em> Well, </em> thought S’Vek, as he worked out a time in his schedule with Sanel for their next communication. <em>  Captain Sisko was right. I should have thought of this a long time ago. </em></p><hr/><p>“Selvelvia knew?”</p><p>Julian Bashir was very startled when S’Vek handed him the information rod. Odo had come at S’Vek’s request and Julian’s reaction to Doctor Crusher’s comment was echoed in the Constable’s eyes.</p><p>“Yes, Selvelvia knew, and was partially responsible for the creation of the virus,” said the Vulcan spy, looking smugly satisfied with the conclusion to the efforts of his research.</p><p>Julian wasn’t certain this look wasn’t simply S’Vek’s resting face. To be really honest, Julian hadn’t been certain S’Vek could find anything. He knew that Odo would want to check the man’s work himself, but he was certain S’Vek wasn’t going to forge false evidence.</p><p>“Why would they want to create a virus that targets their own people?” Crusher said, asking what Julian himself would have asked if she hadn’t gotten to it first.</p><p>“Selvelvia’s government wanted to join the Federation as much as Vulcan wanted them to, but their population at the time was becoming fanatically religious,” said S’Vek. “Selvelvians believe that art and music are the ways in which their God communicates with his followers, and that the beautiful masterpieces of a popular Tholian artist of the time were a sure sign of God’s intent for them to join the Tholian Assembly. The Selvelvian government went to the Vulcan geneticists requesting a virus, and a cure, swearing that the cure would be distributed after they had safely joined the Federation.”</p><p>“But it wasn’t,” Julian said, not surprised and not at all happy.</p><p>“Indeed, in fact the Selvelvian government only gave the cure to select religious leaders in order to control them and keep the people firmly in line. Vulcan’s response was to retool the virus so that it would become incorporated in the Selvelvian genetic code over time if the cure was not distributed, in an attempt to force the leader’s hands. Unfortunately by that time there was a <em>coup</em> on Selvelvia and the planet fell under the rule of religious hardliners who wanted the Rot to remain, as it had become a part of their doctrine. Our relationship with them has been tense ever since.”</p><p>“Where did you acquire this information?” Odo asked skeptically.</p><p>“In the private diaries of one of the geneticists responsible for creating the virus and the updated variant,” S’Vek put his arms behind his back and took a pensive step back. “After he died his diaries went to his relatives, who passed them down over the years and kept them secret. It took a bit of time to convince them to release them. I had to promise that their family’s involvement would remain anonymous…”</p><p>“Not a promise that will be easy to keep,” said Julian, turning the data rod over in his hands. </p><p>“Do you know how many other geneticists were involved?” Crusher asked, again asking just the same question he would have asked.</p><p>Really, they were very similar people when it came down to it. It explained why they worked so well together.</p><p>“Eighteen on Vulcan, four on Selvelvia,” said S’Vek, who turned to look at Odo next. “I can give you copies as well, Constable, and the names of all the people I contacted on Vulcan with more information. I believe you can take it from there.”</p><p>Odo nodded and S’Vek left the infirmary pointedly. He had done what he had come to do. Julian leaned back in his chair, wishing he had stayed so they could pick his brain some more. Not that it would do any good.</p><p>“This is damning, just damning,” Julian shook his head.</p><p>“At least Selvelvia can’t leave the Federation since they themselves were partially responsible…” said Doctor Crusher hopefully.</p><p>“Maybe, or maybe Selvelvia will deny any involvement and let Vulcan take all the blame,” Julian sighed. “But we’d better take a look at those diaries. We might find clues about the original virus there to help us. Hopefully it can give us a stepping point towards a cure.”</p><p>“Well good luck to you both,” said Odo. “I will now have my own hands full finding all the people responsible.”</p><p>Julian watched him leave with a feeling of sadness and dread. The fallout from all of this would be horrific.</p><p>“It's worth it,” said Crusher, as if she had been reading his mind this whole time. “I know it's hard, with all this potential political trouble, to see the happy ending. But think of the people, who were being taken advantage of all this time. It will all be worth it.”</p><p>But the empty place in his soul where his father had been was burning him with its reminding agony. He was going to give Selvelvia the cure, he was certain he could find it now, but he was in such despair. It all seemed so damned pointless, if Selvelvia ended up leaving the Federation any way?</p><p>
  <em> Unless… </em>
</p><p>“Doctor Crusher, do you think it would be too out of the question to set up our treatment clinic here on Bajor? Selvelvians travel here often, I’d think that the Bajoran Medical Authority and the religious community here will be able to handle the number of patients with secondary symptoms.”</p><p>“I think that sounds perfect,” said Crusher. “Bajor will be a great place for people to recover from their illness…the virus isn’t as widespread now as it was back then...”</p><p>“The result of breeding the virus out of their genetic code, and those religious leaders distributing the cure to their most ‘faithful’ devotees,” Julian shivered. “Mostly I think that if Bajor is standing on its own two feet, and Selvelvia is going to break ties with the Federation, then these two spiritually and artistically inclined worlds can maybe find a friend in one another.”</p><p>Crusher’s surprised and delighted look at this was all the evidence Julian needed that this could be just the right cure for the illness that had driven Triv Dochen to take a man’s life, as well as his own.</p><p>A cure that would respect their culture as well as their biology.</p><p>
  <em> This...just feels right. </em>
</p><p><em> ‘You are finally looking to the Prophets for guidance,' </em>Kai Opaka input quietly into his mind. <em> ‘You are finally searching for answers from within…’ </em></p><p>Julian smiled at that. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he really was.</p><hr/><p>Beverly Crusher lay in the darkness that night, curled up in bed, but found that she just couldn’t sleep. Her mind was still teeming with questions, and she had burned the proverbial midnight oil long into the night with Doctor Bashir, decrypting the Vulcan geneticist’s sketchy notes about his work on the virus and finding only small descriptions of this or that. Bashir was still working. She had to hand it to him, he was motivated, now more so by the death of his father.</p><p>She hurt for him, and for Selvelvia. Such a terrible disease to damn your own people with over politics. She and Julian had checked in with Starfleet Medical and double checked the number of people who had died of the disease. It was genocide plain and simple.</p><p>But nothing was ever simple. She rolled over in bed and sighed, looking up at the ceiling. Her career was in tatters, the omnibus bill had been thrown out, their trial had failed and she was clinging to this research as a faint hope of finding a purpose for her life beyond the faint hope of getting back the <em> Enterprise</em>.</p><p>Not being with her crew was the hardest part. Captain Picard had gone with<em> Destiny </em> to personally oversee the upgrades to her engines. Beverly knew he wasn’t going to rest until he had spoken to Data. They all wanted to speak to Data, to get some closure about why he had left.</p><p>But all the other <em> Enterprise </em> crew were on the <em> Titan </em> and the <em> Archimedes</em>. She had decided to stay on Bajor and do her research. But was this where she belonged?</p><p>
  <em> Where do I go from here? </em>
</p><p>“Mom? Are you awake?”</p><p>Beverly bolted upright in fear and gasped, then laughed.</p><p>“Wesley,” she said in relief. “Don’t do that.”</p><p>“Sorry,” said the man, looking very chagrined to have caught his mother in surprise. “I could feel you were upset and thought you might need me.”</p><p>Wesley Crusher was her son, but he was also so many other things. Traveller. Stranger and family member. Intergalactic globetrotter. So different now as an adult to how he had once been as a child. He was wearing a white Starfleet dress uniform, probably for her benefit, looking very much like the young man she once knew. But she knew he could take any form he wanted to now. He could defy time and space. He was even defying gravity, hovering cross legged in the air.</p><p>“Oh sorry,” he lowered his legs pointedly.</p><p>And yes, he could read minds now. He made physical contact with the floor and Beverly left bed to go give her son a welcoming hug. He had popped up like this a few times over the years, which was just as natural to him as breathing, but it still startled her to see him this way. He still looked like a human being, and she often wondered if he would come back to live as a human again one day.</p><p>“Maybe,” he said, grinning impishly as she gave him a disapproving look.</p><p>“Wesley, stay…”</p><p>“...out of your head,” he finished, and grinned again. “I’ll try. It's like breathing, it just happens.”</p><p>“I guess I can understand that,” she went over to the replicator to make herself some tea, knowing he wouldn’t stay too long. He never stayed very long. “I’m glad you’re here. I was feeling...out of sorts. Rather uncertain about why I’m still here, to be honest...”</p><p>“Like, you aren’t sure what to do with your life?” he prompted. “Like you don’t know where you belong?”</p><p>“Exactly,” she sat on the couch and he sat next to her, crossing his legs under him boyishly and grinning that wonderful familiar grin. “I have this need to do something that has...meaning. I know this work for Selvelvia has meaning, but it's Doctor Bashir’s work. I know I could return to the <em> Titan</em>, but <em> Titan </em> has a doctor. I’m just...looking for a place to go where I can make a difference.”</p><p>“Well, I know one space station looking for Starfleet Doctors,” said Wesley, helpfully. “At the shipyards around the planet Valentine.” </p><p>“Valentine?” Beverly felt her confusion and suspicion filling her.</p><p>Valentine was in Neutrality space. Wesley, on top of all his other skills, could travel into the future. He rarely ever gave her insight into actions she should take that could be helpful in the future. It seemed, perhaps, that this time he was going to do just that.</p><p>“I think Valentine is <em> definitely </em> a good place to go if you want to really make a <em> difference</em>,” he said, and he held her eyes for a moment.</p><p>For that brief moment, he was no longer her son. He was a powerful intergalactic traveller with gobs of experience probably beyond the limited number of years that they had been apart. In fact, she was certain that he had seen a few lifetimes in the interim just between this visit and last.</p><p>“Valentine,” she repeated, but almost resignedly. “Hm,” she took a sip of her tea. “I see,” and he rewarded her with one of his innocent, Wesley smiles.</p><p>Just as she remembered him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Wesley Crusher was a lot of people's least favorite character. He was not mine, I liked Wesley Crusher and am happy to have him make a small appearance here. &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Making Plans</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Captain Sisko arrived in the Bajoran temple and immediately stopped, and took in the scene there with a feeling of confusion and yet relieved amusement. Odo had told him severely that he needed to report to the temple, and that was all. Now he was here, looking at a small crowd of Bajoran Vedics, Prylars and Ranjens all sitting in a circle around Doctor Julian Subatoi Bashir, who was smiling as serenely as any Bajoran Vedic he had ever had the pleasure to have his ear pinched by.</p><p>
  <em> I hope Julian doesn’t try to pinch my ear one day... </em>
</p><p>Doctor Crusher was here, surprisingly, looking amused and delighted by the Bajoran assembly. Kira and Odo were standing off to the side as Jak and Fraj both quickly chanted a ritual blessing over the Doctor. Sisko noted that the two men now had the robes and rank of Vedics, they were Ranjens no more.</p><p>Sisko waited for their quiet blessing to end, and Bashir, who had noticed him the moment he had entered, stood to his feet.</p><p>“Captain,” Bashir smiled at him, and on his face was that gleeful ‘Julian’ smile that Sisko could not really stop feeling the contagiousness of. “I did it.”</p><p>“What did you do?”</p><p>“The Selvelvian Rot,” said Doctor Crusher, grinning fully. “He found the cure last night. Really worked himself to death over it.”</p><p>“Emissary, in finding the cure to a disease that no one else could cure, Kaj Bashir has completed the Third Trial of the Kaj,” said Vedic Frim promptly. “He may now begin the fourth Trial of the Kaj. The Burning.”</p><p>“The Burning?” Crusher sounded just as concerned as Sisko felt.</p><p>The name alone brought up images in Sisko’s mind of deep grilling pits of flaming charcoal and the Doctor tied to a pike.</p><p>“The Kaj must survive three days in wandering the desert,” said Jak quietly, putting his sleeve to his face to wipe his watery eyes. “Without food, nor water…”</p><p>Sisko mentally felt his relief. Julain could certainly survive that easily.</p><p>“It certainly draws certain parables to human mythology,” Crusher said quietly, and the Vedics all rewarded her with smiles of delight.</p><p>“When do you think you would be planning to go on this trip?” Sisko asked the Doctor, already suspicious that he knew what the answer would be.</p><p>“Well, I was thinking Captain, that I could go with you when you and Dax take your trip,” Julian said, not revealing anymore than that. “Communication with Earth is sketchy on good days and I want to contact Mum and the cousins and start arrangements for Dad...”</p><p>It was a well known secret that Sisko was planning his leave of absence with Dax. Starfleet could not really afford to give Captains shore leave these days so he wanted to get going as soon as he could. Bringing Bashir would make sense, the more people he brought the more likely Starfleet would be willing to let him go.</p><p>“Jak and I will have to come with you,” said Frim promptly. “We are now charged with personally overseeing the results of your Trials…”</p><p>Sisko felt his stomach drop. Having the two Vedics on board would complicate things just a little. He really wanted to go to Tyree with Dax and Jake, and now it looked like his party would be swelling.</p><p>
  <em> Unless... </em>
</p><p>“Not to worry, Captain,” said Odo, as if reading his mind. “I think it would be a good idea to take a trip to Vulcan to continue my investigation. I think Vulcan would be a good place for the Doctor to take his trial, and you can continue to your destination alone.”</p><p>Sisko looked over at Kira, who was smiling and crossing her arms pointedly. She was giving him a knowing look.</p><p>“The scrolls do have it written that the Emissary and the Kaj will travel together,” said Jak softly. “Twin journeys on the sands…”</p><p>Tyree was a desert planet. Sisko looked up at the ceiling for a moment, as the people in the room seemed to be waiting for his final decision on the matter. It all depended on Dax now.</p><p>“Sounds like we’d better start packing,” said Sisko. “As soon as the <em> Titan </em> returns.”</p><hr/><p>Ezri Dax looked out over the expanse of stars, feeling quite calm and content as the runabout made its way through the starfield. The shuttle was momentarily quiet, as Jake and Odo were in the back part of the shuttle with the Vedic Frim, fussing over the packs for each group that would be travelling to their different points.</p><p>Captain Sisko, Julian Bashir and his second aide, Vedic Jak, were up here with her. Sisko was pouring over the instrument panel in front of him and researching the history of Tyree and the expeditions to the planet that had been made over the years. Humanity had been very hopeful of maybe colonizing the desert world, only failing due to its very arid environment being too unpleasant for many colonists and the plethora of other more suitable locations in the same star system. So thus, still uninhabited, it was nonetheless a place where Federation citizens occasionally visited, scientists mostly and adventure seekers.</p><p>Julian Bashir, conversely, was napping, his shuttle seat reclining back as far as it could be positioned, and a blanket had been kindly wrapped around the man by Jak when the people in the shuttle had realized the doctor had actually been fast asleep.</p><p>Ezri considered this. Julian had worked very hard long nights trying to find the Selvelvian cure. Bajor was already celebrating the Kaj’s successful trial, and Selvelvia was hastily covering their asses in regards to Richard Bashir’s death by calling the Doctor’s cure a ‘miracle of God’ a sign that God had forgiven the ‘Sins of the Federation’.</p><p>In reality, Odo had been contacting every official of note involved asking questions and clearly the investigation was gaining traction. S’Vek was no longer a part of the investigation, but perhaps he had felt his Vulcan connections had gotten him as far as he could get and was going to let Odo continue in his own way alone.</p><p>Still, all that work had at least one silver lining. Now they could go on this trip and Dax could spend some time reacquainting herself with Odo and Bashir before they parted ways for Tyree.</p><p>Julian Bashir really had earned a good sleep. He was getting as much as he could get before beaming down to Vulcan with his two aides. Frim and Jak were curious about the Vulcan belief system and hopeful of introducing Bajoran faith to the world. Ezri almost felt hopeful for them. She knew that Vulcans had been subject to proselytization by many worlds in the past and were very firm in their beliefs and culture, but they were also very logically respectful of these attempts. Frim and Jak would leave without converting anyone, but would feel as if they had. Vulcans were simply ready to learn about any new idea or religious belief system that came their way, nothing more or less than natural curiosity.</p><p>She was more concerned about Julian Bashir, alone in the Vulcan wilderness for three days, which was difficult even for many Vulcans. Genetic engineering would keep him alive, but how he would be mentally afterwards was a toss.</p><p>
  <em> But, he had endured a Dominion prison camp fairly well… </em>
</p><p>Dax was conflicted, her own counsellor's mind trying to connect with what she knew about Julian Bashir from Jadzia’s memories.</p><p>
  <em> She was really close to him...I know I’ll probably end up being very good friends to him...I can tell… </em>
</p><p>But Julian had barely been alone since Garak’s death, and he hadn’t been showing outward signs of that previous pain. Now his father had also been murdered, he should not have been handling his grief this well.</p><p>
  <em> I wish I could go into the desert with him, just to see how he handles the isolation… </em>
</p><p>Three days wandering in the sand with just his thoughts? Dax turned her head to sneak another peek at the sleeping man.</p><p>Yes, he definitely needed a bit of rest before heading out to Vulcan’s Forge. It was a place that had broken the wills of many highly logical Vulcans during their Kolinahr.</p><p>She couldn’t imagine what affect it would have on a human psyche.</p><hr/><p>“Dreamer, fighting Klingons is nothing like fighting the Borg or Humans, and everything like fighting yourself…”</p><p>Dreamer quickly followed Ultraviolet in a lockstep towards the holodeck, the two of them entering the room and finding Angel already inside with Thistle.</p><p>“Alright?” said Thistle, giving Ultraviolet a solid smile. “We were just saying that Dreamer is strong enough for Klingons…”</p><p>“Yes, but that strength is also his weakness…” their Captain came to a stop, and stood there for a moment in thought. “Klingons are used to fighting enemies stronger than them, and they will pair up to fight a difficult enemy. You cannot underestimate them. Their honor allows two on one battles if their opponent is stronger. Dreamer will not only be protecting himself, but Ghost as well…they will not hesitate to divide you and gang up on you if they find you unworthy.”</p><p>Ultraviolet quickly summoned up a single Klingon enemy hologram, and he stood in front of the unmoving character, looking him over.</p><p>“I am going to show you three what to do, and what not to do, if you don’t want them drawing an energy weapon. They will fight you hand to hand, but if you act dishonorably in combat, they will shoot you without reservation…”</p><p>Ultraviolet took a fighting stance, and Dreamer saw the opponent Klingon take a similar stance. He would have to train with the holodeck every day to be ready for any eventuality. But once he learned a skill, he could not lose it.</p><p>Unfortunately, this was not the case for others. Ultraviolet struggled with the Klingon for a moment, and then finally flipped him and paused the program.</p><p>“Already losing strength,” he said, more to himself than anything, and then put on a bright smile. “Well, I want to see what each of you can do, and we’ll go from there.”</p><p>It would be some hours of fighting and training later that Dreamer would realize just how difficult a battle they would be up against. Ideally Thistle and Angel wouldn’t have to do any hand to hand combat in order to access the power generators for the dome. But Dreamer…</p><p>
  <em> I will be in a prison full of Klingons, the newcomer, and who knows how many Klingons I’ll be fighting against… </em>
</p><p>When the training session finished, Ultraviolet handed him two gifts that would help with his mission, putting them into his hand casually, with a distant look of pain in his eyes.</p><p>“You’ll need my watch for Ghost. Those watches can be detected underground, and you may end up being pretty far beneath the surface in those caves when you beam out. But you should be able to communicate with the ship without fearing detection by the Klingons…”</p><p>The second gift was a bracelet, that he showed Dreamer the traditional method for tying on a ‘friend’.</p><p>“Ghost gave this to me as a gift when we were young ne'er-do-wells on Risa,” said Ultraviolet. “Giving him this should help convince him of who you are…”</p><p>And an hour after that Ultraviolet left, beaming down from the ship with very little more than a final breathless good luck, the strain of all he had been trying to teach them visibly weighing him down.</p><p>Dreamer thought about it all, examining the friendship bracelet cautiously and considering the man’s words quietly.</p><p>
  <em> Ghost has no reason to trust us. No reason to help us. And we can only hope being free from prison will be enough incentive for him to repair my damaged brain. Either way...it's a difficult mission with little certainty and a higher possibility of failure. </em>
</p><p>Visions of Klingon warriors were dancing with him all night in his dreams. But with them came the nightmares, and the horrible feeling that if Ghost could not help him, then no one could.</p><p>And they would be risking it all to save him.</p><p>
  <em> And find the Firebird. It all comes down to that one important mission. Finding a leader to unite the Factions and prevent an interstellar war between them. Only then, will I be free of this burden. </em>
</p><p>Freedom was a dream that any prisoner could understand.</p><hr/><p>Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship <em> Destiny </em> was Captain no more. The newest pip on his collar felt like a leaden weight when Admiral Ross pinned it onto him, almost firmly, like a parent buttoning a child’s sweater closed.</p><p>“Admiral,” said Admiral Ross, smiling. “Long time coming…”</p><p>“And thank God for it!” said Admiral Nacheyev, putting her hands on her hips smartly. “You certainly took your time, Jean-Luc!”</p><p>The starfleet personnel on the station platform with them laughed jovially at this, and Picard put a finger up to touch the pip with a resigned smile.</p><p>None of the people in attendance for his promotion were members of his former crew. A few new crewmen from the <em> Destiny </em> and some of the Utopia Planetia shipyard crewmen had come out for the ceremony, but the remainder were Admirals, all welcoming their newest brother to their ranks with smiles, and in Saduk’s case, a respectful Vulcan salute.</p><p>But there was a caveat to his promotion that he had brow beaten into their heads before he had been willing to accept the pip. The<em> Destiny </em> was still his ship. He was not going to sit at a desk, he would be damned if they ever took him out of his chair.</p><p>“The days of Admirals sitting behind desks are over,” said Ross, as if he was reading Picard’s thoughts. “We’re looking severely forward to seeing if you can handle the Admiral job and command a starship at the same time.”</p><p>“It can be done,” said Nacheyev. “Just remember you command <em> multiple </em> ships now, not just one…”</p><p>Picard smiled, a wry grin that brooked no argument.</p><p>“I think you’ll find there is very little I can’t do once I’ve set my stubborn mind to it.”</p><p>A few more laughs, and Nacheyev shook his hand with a sort of sad smile.</p><p>“Well I guess I won't be yelling at you anymore over subspace…”</p><p>“You won’t?” Picard joked wryly, and that earned him a proper laugh from the usually rather stern woman.</p><p>“I’ll buy you a drink,” she insisted, and pointed towards Utopia Planetia’s promenade and walkway, where there were shops and restaurants along the row to serve the needs of the ship builders here. “And you can tell us your plan for getting back the <em> Enterprise</em>.”</p><p>Determination and grit filled him, and he followed her pointedly, Ross and Saduk following at the silent invitation implied in her comment.</p><p>He had quite a few plans, and there was one little Songbird that could hopefully prove very instrumental to making them happen.</p><p>
  <em> I don’t want to spook the young man, so I’ll wait and see what the results of his concert tour might be… </em>
</p><p>Before anything else, he wanted to speak to Data. Nothing else mattered but Data, and getting his new starship up the same level as the <em> Enterprise</em>…</p><p>Everything else would have to take second priority, for the time being.</p><p>
  <em> One of the benefits of being an Admiral now, I suppose. This time we’ll have enough ships to stop the Enterprise in its tracks. We just have to arrange the place and time for my trap...and hope the young musician still has the influence with the Factions that Sisko suggested he did. Otherwise I don’t know what else we will use for bait... </em>
</p><p>It was all up to the tour, and how it played out. Would Songbird have enough fame to draw a huge gathering from all parts of the quadrant in one place on one planet? It was that moment, that pinnacle of a performance artist’s career, that Picard was planning for.</p><p>Just one ultimate stage show to set the scene. If only the bait were enough to capture the minds and imagination of the audience and draw them into the net. Then the trap would be sprung, and the <em> Enterprise </em> would be back in their hands.</p><p>It was like lighting a match. Hesitate, striking timidly and slowly, and nothing would happen. The timing needed to be perfect.</p><p>
  <em> No spark, no fire. No prize was ever won by hesitation. I will stay the course, and not waver in my determination, and make the Enterprise the first success of my Admiralcy. And hopefully bring a friend home in the process. </em>
</p><hr/><p>With a sigh of complaint, Songbird sat back in his chair in front of his mirror in his dressing room and huffed. His reflection huffed back at him.</p><p>“Oh sure, you look tired,” he said to his mirror self. “In an hour you’ll be wishing you were back on stage again…” he pointed accusingly at his reflection. “You asked for this and you got it.”</p><p>But fame was jarring. Inkaria was bubbling with excitement at his arrival, and so close to the Cardassian border, they had been needing a concert and some entertainment to liven their spirits. Cardassia had taken over this planet multiple times over the years, and had abandoned it again later after realizing they gained very little from the planet and lost potential defensive ground trying to protect it. Being occupied and abandoned over and over had built up a society that mistrusted anyone from the outside that wasn’t Bajoran. Of all the worlds, only Bajor was steadfast and had never ended their friendship.</p><p><em> Well maybe Selvelvia will join them, </em>Songbird thought, picking through the refuse of the make-up littered on the dressing table surface to find a wet wipe to deal with his stage makeup. “Now that so many Selvelvians will be visiting the region, Bajor will have lots of friends,” he added out loud. </p><p>“What?” Shavi lifted her head from where she had been counting their sold seats and comparing ledgers, and considered him carefully. “Yes, Bajor.”</p><p>“We <em> are </em> going back soon, right?” Songbird said firmly. “We know Julian found a cure...it’ll just be a short trip, and then back on tour.”</p><p>“Or months of recovery,” Shavi countered tersely. “Let's not go too off schedule again. I am very much still standing on my own two feet.”</p><p>“Shavi…”</p><p>“Birdling, I know you are worried, but Bajor is going to be crowded with Selvelvians soon, those with worse Rot than my own. It can wait…”</p><p>Songbird huffed and turned a little too firmly in his chair, knowing that she was just being stubborn, and would find a time in their schedule, discreetly, when he wasn’t actually asking her about it. She was practical that way.</p><p>What wasn’t practical, was the open door to their dressing room, which Songbird wondered about pointedly. Inkarians had an ‘always open door’ policy, but there were probably a lot of Inkarian fans waiting out there for him to leave the theatre for autographs. Security was keeping the crowds back until he was ready for them.</p><p>“So,” Songbird wiped the last of the powder and foundation off and stood up. “Shall I go sign some autographs?”</p><p>Shavi just nodded, not lifting her head from her ledger, and he left her there pouring over her PADD quietly to peek outside.</p><p>A few fans were waiting. Songbird had a special pen he used for making his mark on whatever objects people brought. One of Quark’s tacky golden Peldor Joi pens, with a fancy tassel he had added off one of his own costumes, and it really did represent him in very many respects.</p><p>It didn’t take long, but one fan surprised him more than the large number of Inkarians and Bajorans waiting for his insignia. For one, he wasn’t Inkarian, or Bajoran, he was Cardassian, standing out and causing people considerable looks of concern. But the young Cardassian, with a smile that was so very unlike any Cardassian smile he had seen, handed him a folded piece of paper.</p><p>“Don’t sign it, it's for you,” he said softly, with a very gentle voice.</p><p>Songbird had a very sixth sense for guessing people. He held up the paper and looked over the curious young Cardassian, and pondered.</p><p>
  <em> Very genuine, he feels like an honest, old soul. </em>
</p><p>Finally, he opened the letter with a flourish, and momentarily was struck with confusion.</p><p>
  <em> ‘My dearest love…’ </em>
</p><p>The Kardassi script was easy for him to read, and he almost blushed, thinking that maybe this Cardassian was less ‘fan’ than he was ‘fanatical’, but then the next line made him realize just what he was reading.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Since we’ve parted, I’ve thought of nothing but you, and our child…’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Oh...my…god... </em>
</p><p>Songbird looked up at the man, and the Cardassian smiled.</p><p>“What is your name?” he asked, hoping, praying, that this letter was what he thought it was.</p><p>“Glinn Rugal. My ship is on a trade run along the DMZ, so I’ll be seeing you often…”</p><p>Songbird nodded, feeling his stomach turning and he shifted gears, putting on a dazzling smile as he pocketed the love letter.</p><p>“Well it's nice to have fans on either side of the border,” he said, and then the next fan shuffled forward at the unspoken queue that it was time for the Cardassian to move on.</p><p>Rugal didn’t waste time, he slipped out of sight, and Songbird gave him one last memorizing look over before he left for good.</p><p>This was a face he would not forget if his life depended on it.</p><p><em> Now we’ll have to go back to DS9! </em> Songbird thought brightly to himself. <em> The mail must go through! </em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I didn't know when I wanted Picard promoted. But I wasn't certain whether I could make it work later in the story, it has to be sooner than later.</p><p>Rugal is a wonderful character, that I wish the show had brought back a second time, and which has a story of his own in the pocket novel The Never-ending Sacrifice. A beautiful novel everyone must read.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Skin and Bones</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hopefully the fact that I wrote this signals the end of my writing drought. I am not calling it a writer's block, it would take several hundred blocks to describe how I've been feeling at this point, and anyways, I am tired of hearing about walls.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dreamer stared, blinking his eyes rapidly as he tried to adjust his positronic mind into accepting what he was looking at right in front of him.</p><p>He just didn’t recognize himself. The human face looking back at him was puzzled, and it was a human face. Anyone else might mistake him for one of his many human relatives, Doctor Noonian Soong, or more appropriately to the part he was playing, Arik Soong. The short gray hair that stood up in places, the blue eyes...somehow Scarlett had even managed to give him wrinkles, and for once in his life he wore hair on his chin and it did not look out of place. It was not a full beard, just stubble, a couple days' growth, perhaps, and it was gray in color, just as his hair was.</p><p>“You look just like a Soong,” Scarlett said, finishing up the last touches with the hair dying device in her hand. “I think you’ll pass.”</p><p>Dreamer looked up at her, feeling alarmed and strange.</p><p>“I do look very much like a human, certainly…”</p><p>But he didn’t feel it. He felt like an imposter in this pink wrinkled skin, even now his primary circuit interface was working hard to re-establish the touch sensation connections from his new skin and hair to his brain. It didn’t take long.</p><p>“You should keep it,” said Scarlett. “You look good.”</p><p>“Perhaps, but I am not quite sure about this look,” Dreamer said, looking in the mirror again as he stood to his feet. “I am not that old…”</p><p>“Well, we can give you another makeover when you get back,” she followed him from the room and he found himself grateful for her presence. “The blue eyes suit you. No, you really do look like a Soong, I can’t decide which one.”</p><p>“I should more closely resemble my father,” Data rubbed his face. “Doctor Soong used his own image to create his androids.”</p><p>“Well, if you’re going to make an android, might as well make it like you,” she grinned. “I bet you’ll cause a few jaws to drop when they see you. Now let's get you dressed like a thug. Cargo bay three has all the crew clothes we kept...”</p><p>Dreamer felt his stomach was functioning strangely, for it was filled with an unusual sensation. He usually associated this sensation with the nervousness that came with new things that could go very well, like a promotion, or asking Savil for a date…the sensation often described by human literature as being similar to the feeling of ‘butterflies’. </p><p>But no. This sensation of stomach churning anxiety was related to fear.</p><p>
  <em> Rura Penthe… </em>
</p><p>They had risked connecting to the Federation Library service back in Neutrality space, and Dreamer had gone over all records of the prison’s history, the few escapes, the most notable being the escape of two captains, both of which had commanded Starships named ‘Enterprise’. Captain Johnathan Archer of the <em> NX-01</em>, and Captain James T. Kirk, along with Doctor Leonard McCoy, command crew of the <em> Constitution </em> class <em> NCC-1701</em>. Having met the redoubtable Admiral McCoy while he still lived, Dreamer could quite easily understand how he could have escaped a Klingon penal colony. He had seemed like someone who could be counted to give his all in a brawl.</p><p>But there was something more about the prison that was causing this fear and anxiety. He was confident in his abilities, and his potential success in finding Ghost and fighting off any Klingon enemies that came at him. The escape was planned out to the most exacting detail, how close the <em>Enterprise</em> would have to be to beam them out successfully once Angel and Thistle deactivated the forcefield around the prison. Both had been very confident that they could reach the generator for the forcefield without much resistance.</p><p>It wasn’t the cold that he feared, as an android he could readily handle very low temperatures and still function without any problems. His internal systems heated themselves.</p><p>For a moment, he was standing outside the cargo bay door staring at it, trying to pinpoint it exactly, and it was looking at Scarlett that did it.</p><p>
  <em> This feeling is karma. Kismet. Guilt. That is it. It is the feeling that I am going exactly where I’m supposed to be...That I deserve to go to prison and this is all inevitable. </em>
</p><p>Dreamer took a sudden big step back and Scarlett looked up in the open doorway confused.</p><p>“Dreamer?”</p><p>He paused for a moment...and considered.</p><p>“Arik Soong,” he said, and nodded. “I believe <em> that </em> is the relative I most closely resemble.”</p><p>Scarlett grinned, and followed him inside, and the cargo bay doors closed slowly, as if sealing his fate with their quiet, gentle hiss of satisfaction.</p><hr/><p>“Savil!” Julian Bashir grinned widely at the sight of the Vulcan woman waiting for them in the visitor transporter bay. “I wasn’t expecting to see you!”</p><p>“Commander S’Vek contacted his relatives before we left in order to ensure we had quarters waiting for our arrival,” Odo said smartly. “Naturally they offered for us to stay at the orphanage.”</p><p>“Caring for orphans is one of the more cherished benefits of serving the temple,” said Vedic Jak, putting a hand to his cheek. “A wonderful opportunity for you Kaj…”</p><p>“We would be grateful for the help,” said Savil. “We have had a few staff leave us recently.”</p><p>“Well, if you really don’t mind, then I guess we could extend our trip for a little while to help out,” Julian said thoughtfully. “I still have to go to the desert for my Trial first.”</p><p>“It may not be allowed,” said Savil. “Very few humans have ever been to the Plain of Blood before. You may have to choose a different location...”</p><p>“We shall be patient,” said Vedic Prim promptly. “We are most certainly grateful to be able to visit your world at all in these troubled times.”</p><p>Julian watched the woman carefully, looking for any sign in her face that she was concerned or unhappy to have them. Like all Vulcans, her emotional state was indiscernible. She had a considerably well practiced poker face.</p><p>
  <em> She’ll want to ask me questions about the search for the Enterprise. I don’t know anything. But then again, I don’t know how much she’s been told… </em>
</p><p>The orphanage, when they arrived, gave him a moment to pause. Savil introduced them to her mother T’Val. The formidable woman explained to them that Vulcan was very quick to place healthy and mentally fit children into homes for foster care, most of the children here would therefore be ones that had difficulties of some kind that made it difficult for people to want to adopt them, but not severe enough for them to need the care of a medical institution. Many had emotional control problems, and it was still a problem of prejudice on Vulcan that children with uncontrollable emotions were not wanted. She then shared with them some history of the orphanage as they walked through it, and noted that the children were all in classrooms right now.</p><p>“And the dormitories,” she pointed them to the long hallway of closed doors. “Adults quarters are up the stairs at the end on the next level…”</p><p>Julian was finally grateful to sit on his bed at last, despite Jak and Prim fussing over him and his pack, and finally leaving him alone to go meet again with Savil’s mother to offer their voluntary services to help with the care of the orphans. Julian felt his heart warm at the idea of Bajoran Vedics teaching and looking after Vulcan children. Something about it just made him want to hug his cheeks from all the smiling.</p><p>Anything to push down the overwhelming anxiety that had filled him when he had beamed down with his party and immediately spotted Savil.</p><p>
  <em> What can I tell her? And how much does she know? </em>
</p><p>He didn’t have to wait long. Odo soon walked into his room, followed by the Vulcan woman in question, and Odo shut and locked the door to prevent them from being disturbed.</p><p>Or him from escaping. No, he would do what he could.</p><p>“Well,” said Odo, “You wanted to talk to us?”</p><p>“I want to know from you what happened with the <em> Enterprise</em>,” Savil said, in that blunt Vulcan way of getting right to the problem without any extraneous narrative. “I am certain there are aspects I have not been informed about.”</p><p>“Well, why don’t you tell us what you know so far?” Julian said, his stomach turning a little in sympathy for her. “And we’ll try to fill you in?”</p><p>Savil seemed to consider this for a moment.</p><p>“I was told on the day of the theft of the <em> Enterprise </em> that my husband was missing,” she sat down on the end of the bed and frowned. “A few days later, officers from Starfleet Security came to question me.”</p><p>Julian felt his stomach sink hundreds of feet into the planet’s crust. She was no longer looking at him, but was now looking at his pack on the floor near the closet.</p><p>“After talking with me, they left, and soon after his status was changed to ‘Wanted’…” she shivered, but it could not have been from the cold, it was actually rather hot today.</p><p>“What information did you give them?” said Odo, clearly getting at the heart of the matter.</p><p>All of them had been concerned by the change from ‘Missing’ to ‘Wanted’. But Starfleet had been reasonably certain he was operating without any alteration to his neural net.</p><p>“I gave them access to our shared mail system...they could not decrypt his files, but took copies with them,” she swallowed. “I will give you copies too, I have not been able to decrypt them myself. He did not use standard Federation or Vulcan decryption methods. I do not think anyone will be able to access them.”</p><p>Julian thought about that for a moment.</p><p>
  <em> We’re Bajoran, clearly she doesn’t trust Starfleet now. Why? </em>
</p><p>“What did you say to them?”’</p><p>“I told them my h-husband,” Savil’s breath hitched and Bashir’s stomach lurched from seeing the Vulcan woman’s emotional control slipping. “That he was very concerned about Colony 53. He was sending me messages, and he said his friend had been taken, his friend…the holo programmer...”</p><p>
  <em> Oh god. </em>
</p><p>“I told them…” she swallowed. “That he was hoping to help, in whatever way he could, to find him...to do something to help the people on Colony 53…”</p><p>She took a hitched breath and that’s when her emotional control dropped like a rock.</p><p>“H-he sent me messages daily...the last was the morning of the...p-promotion ceremony…telling me to carry on with adopting Vinek alone...he would return when he could.”</p><p>A tear rolled down her cheek. And then another. And another.</p><p>“How long have you been without emotional control?” Julian said softly, but respectfully.</p><p>“Since that day...the <em> Enterprise</em>...sometimes I can feel his pain...his fury...his absolute despair...”</p><p>Julian put an arm out as she collapsed into sobbing, and he looked up at Odo and nodded.</p><p>“Get T’Val…”</p><p>“No!” Savil was now utterly desperate. “No please don’t tell her!”</p><p>“Savil, it's not something you would have been able to hide for much longer.”</p><p>“If the Council finds out, they’ll take Vinek from me, and he’s all that I have now…” she covered her face with her hands. “Data promised he would come back. He <em> promised </em>…he has to...”</p><p>It was the first time she had said her husband’s name since they had arrived. But it was too late to stop Odo even if he had wanted to, the shapeshifter was already gone.</p><hr/><p>T’Val exited Savil’s bedroom with a grave look on her face, followed by the Vulcan High Priestess. Doctor Bashir was soon to follow. Odo noted that the human’s face was scrunched and pained, as if he had just seen something horrendous.</p><p>Young Vinek immediately launched to his feet from the hallway floor where he’d been sitting. He had been pulled out of class by his would be Grandmother, and left with Odo and the Vedics to wait in the hallway, with not a word said.</p><p>But Vinek had much to say.</p><p>“Is she all right?” said the boy. “She’s just like me right? Human family, she just needs practice…”</p><p>“Perhaps so,” said the High Priestess, T’Prina, respectfully looking at the child, as if she were conversing with another adult. “But in this case, it is not due to bloodline, it is an issue with the mind bond between her and her husband.”</p><p>“It is now one sided,” said T’Val. “All one way, into her, but nothing into him. And at such a great distance...”</p><p>“I have temporarily blocked the bond,” said T’Prina, saying this as if it were as simple as using a hypospray. “But to remove it permanently her partner would have to be here as well.”</p><p>“Why would you want to remove it?” said Odo, getting to the heart of the issue. “Does Savil want to end her marriage?”</p><p>“No,” said T’Prina. “But she is at risk of developing Pa’nar syndrome, which can severely endanger her health,” she turned to look at Doctor Bashir firmly. “The only other options are to wait seven years again until Pon Farr...induce it prematurely by artificial methods...or for her husband to return so they can bond again.”</p><p>Bashir nodded, the sick look on his face was now fully understandable to Odo. Vinek looked like his whole world was going to fall down, but T’Val immediately went to his side.</p><p>“We will take this one day at a time. For now, Vinek you can visit her, but you must keep in control…” she stressed this very severely. “Loss of control again will only make it worse…”</p><p>“I promise,” Vinek nodded. “I will stay in control of my emotions.”</p><p>Bashir came up beside Odo as the boy moved to enter the bedroom, T’Val going in with him and closing the door behind her. Odo watched Jak and Prim move over to stand next to their Kaj, Jak still with his sleeve to his red eyes. The Bajoran Vedic was famously rather emotionally sensitive.</p><p>“Doctor Bashir,” T’Prina turned to look at him, her expression was now more satisfactory. “I will take time when I visit the Council to speak to them on your behalf, I believe it would go <em> against </em> our values as Vulcans if we did not allow you to complete your spiritual journey…”</p><p>“Thank you…” Bashir turned to look at the bedroom door. “Will Savil’s adoption application be rejected?”</p><p>“Perhaps?” said T’Prina curiously. “More likely than not. But I understand her mother has also applied to the council to adopt the child, so I think Vinek might still remain in her family.”</p><p>She moved passed them now, turning towards the stairway, and clearly the conversation was over. Two of the orphanage teachers were waiting at the landing to show her the way out.</p><p>“Oh god,” Bashir backed up against the wall, and looked at Odo. “Well, that is not good.”</p><p>“More troubling is what Savil told us, and now it is understandable why Commander Data’s status has changed from ‘missing’ to ‘wanted’. If he had already had plans to help Colony 53, it’s a rather short jump to concluding that the Augments he is with may be planning to do the same.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Bashir’s concerned face indicated that something was off, that he couldn’t be certain of. “A starship of that size would be a perfect place to relocate hundreds of genetically engineered children and their families…”</p><p>“Or just the children,” Odo said. “Nonetheless, it also explains the extreme amount of security now positioned around Colony 53.”</p><p>Doctor Bashir still didn’t look convinced, but Jak and Prim came to either side of him as if they were ready to grab him by the arms and carry him off, if the looks on their faces were anything to go by.</p><p>“Well enough of this wondering,” said Prim smartly. “There is a time to talk, and a time to eat, and it is almost time for the evening meal…”</p><p>Odo had to have a chuckle at this, solids and their consumption of food had always been a source of amusement for him. His own brief experience as a solid taught him that although sometimes pleasant, there was nothing so serious about food that it should be a constant worry and concern in the minds of those who had plenty to choose from.</p><p>
  <em> On the other hand, for those who have less…or no choice... </em>
</p><p>Well, it didn’t matter. Dinner meant that the orphans would be out of classes and descending upon them en mass with curiosity and questions.</p><p>
  <em> Vulcan children...they shouldn’t be too difficult to deal with. I wonder if they enjoy spinning tops? </em>
</p><hr/><p>“Oh bloody hell, Dreamer,” Thistle looked up from where he had been painting the side of the shuttlecraft, rubbing a hand through his hair and grinning broadly. “You look just like that ancestor of yours, Arik wasn’t it?”</p><p>Dreamer immediately turned to look at Scarlett and she rolled her eyes.</p><p>“All right, I guess I owe you a meal or something…”</p><p>Angel watched the three of them banter about Dreamer’s new appearance with a feeling of concern. They were now preparing for the mission, having weathered and renamed the shuttle, just finalizing the new paint job and their uniforms. Angel and Thistle were now wearing the commander's red uniforms, underneath extreme weather standard issue parkas and trousers, with the Starfleet Security pips and badges of prison transfer personnel. Both of them wore reflective snow visors. Angel had hers pushed up on her head until they were necessary, but Thistle had been enjoying showing off and striking several artistic poses with the shades. It had all been routine and humorous up until the last pair had arrived.</p><p>Now the weedy looking gray man that Dreamer had been transformed into gave her considerable pause. If she hadn’t known that he was an android with extreme strength and durability, she’d be concerned for his well being. But then again, Klingons weren’t very well known for their mercy to prisoners. His own clothing was baggy work clothes and little else. Considering what clothing the Klingons did afford to their prisoners, Angel made a decision.</p><p>“Here,” she passed him another all weather parka. “We’re bringing you in as a prisoner for temporary ‘holding’ until trial, so hopefully they won’t take this…you can then give it to Ghost, in case you have to escape to the surface before the beam out.”</p><p>Dreamer put it on and Thistle reluctantly attached some magnetic cuffs to his hands and feet. Angel turned her head to look at the others present. Jeeves had put the <em> Enterprise </em> on autopilot and was waiting here respectfully to see them off. Scarlett stood next to him, smiling as she watched Dreamer fiddle with the cuffs.</p><p>“Fancy bracelets,” she teased him, and Angel saw him smile.</p><p>Tinker stayed where he was, leaning on a wall with one leg crooked and arms crossed. His face was a mask. He was keeping a respectful distance, still not entirely at home with the crew, and without Sam here his presence was making her nervous.</p><p>
  <em> This distrust we have for one another is so built in from so many years of having to hide ourselves or live in exile. I really hope we can break that barrier and work together. </em>
</p><p>Thistle and Clover were now holding each other and crying and saying their goodbyes. Thistle tweaked the nose of his baby, who was here to see her Daddy off on his mission. His first mission away from them since her birth. The tears in all their eyes were very much real.</p><p>Angel decided to just get things over with and went inside the shuttlecraft.</p><p>
  <em> Everyone is trying to stay positive. But this feels like we are literally freefalling without a chute. Sam, we really need you here and you aren’t... </em>
</p><p>Not much else needed to be said really. She tried to ignore the squirming in her stomach as she heard Scarlett and the others outside the craft wishing them good luck, and Dreamer joked about buying a 'hotel' for 'Park Place' after this was all done. Eventually Thistle and Dreamer both boarded, Thistle taking the right navigator’s seat in the front.</p><p>“All right,” she turned on the comms. “Shuttlecraft <em> Hanson </em> to <em> Enterprise</em>, preparing for launch.”</p><p>Jeeves had already left the cargo bay, having said his goodbyes. The exit from the ship would be mostly automated, routine, but once they were outside of the ship, <em> Enterprise </em> would cloak for the approach to Klingon space, and all comm traffic would cease.</p><p>They would be alone but not alone. Angel felt behind her that Dreamer was adjusting the ‘cuffs’ which he could escape from easily if he needed to. The Klingons would remove them after the transfer, if they were lucky.</p><p>“Shuttlecraft <em> Hanson</em>, this is <em> Enterprise</em>,” Jeeves’ voice came over the comms at last. “You are cleared to leave.”</p><p>Angel gave one last look to the others in the bay, as the shuttlebay doors opened up, the atmospheric forcefield took over, and the shuttlecraft lifted.</p><p>All business and no nonsense, she entered in the appropriate commands for the automatic launching, and took a long look over the starfield as they were approaching.</p><p>Rura Penthe was one of those stars. An ominous silence filled the shuttlecraft, as Thistle monitored the region and Angel kept her ear open to the comms, and her eyes on her navigation panel.</p><p>Dreamer was deathly silent. She resisted the urge to look back at him.</p><p>But then…</p><p>“...sixteen tons, number nine coal…”</p><p>Angel blinked and Thistle’s eyebrows raised to his hairline with his smile.</p><p>Dreamer had silently begun to sing, and Thistle soon joined in the song with a nervous laugh. Not knowing the tune, Angel just grinned and shook her head.</p><p>All the pressure was lifted and she felt herself relaxing into her seat, tapping the console in tune to the song.</p><p>“...I owe my soul to the company store…” came the final refrain, and Angel decided that simple line summed the mission they were about to undertake quite perfectly.</p><p>They owed their souls, their lives, to the Firebird. They had to find him, or die trying. This mission wasn’t just vital, it was mandatory. Turning back was not an option.</p><p>It was destiny.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Somehow I think Odo is really putting his foot in his mouth about Vulcan children, and he'll probably be finding out just how difficult they are to manage soon. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Fire and Ice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Its been a long time coming, but I am updating. Yay. Happy Camp NaNoWriMo everyone. And Happy Easter to Easter celebrating peoples!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The desert. Vast and dry and hot...and the sand! Endless sand that got between the toes of his feet, under his heels, into his sandals, stuck to the sweat of his skin...</p><p>
  <em> I hate sand. </em>
</p><p>Vulcan’s Forge was a blast furnace, proving to Julian Bashir just where it must have gotten its name. The afternoon sun was burning down on his head, becoming a bright spotlight in his eyes if he accidentally looked up into it to get his bearings and gauge the time. Rare vegetation in the form of dried, dormant brush and bulging bubble cactus had passed him by hours ago and now he was here, without water, or food, and wondering how he was going to keep cool without any sort of shelter. He pulled the loose hood of his Bajoran robes over his head, the cloth material catching the earring that Jak had silently handed him without a word that morning, and grumbled silently to himself about the useless piece of jewelry. Of course he would have to wear it. This was a Bajoran ritual after all.</p><p><em> Don’t sweat the small stuff, Julian, </em> he thought to himself. <em> A vastly more expansive problem is in front of you now… </em></p><p>Julian looked out over the desert feeling as if he was biting off more than he could chew tackling Vulcan’s Forge for this Trial. Bajor’s deserts were smaller and easier to survive in, with more brush and hidden water sources. There was no question as to how Kai Winn would have survived this task, she had probably memorised the route she was going to take before taking her Trial. He hadn’t had that luxury.</p><p>
  <em> She probably had friends sneaking her water and food in the desert to help secure her position... </em>
</p><p>Early that morning the Vedics and the Vulcan High Priestess had come to get him, all of them assuring him that he would do well, and making sure he had drunk well and ate well and was in good spirits before ‘shooing’ him off the shuttle into the bare desert and leaving him there.</p><p>He was at least able to keep track of where he was. The Forge was quite rocky in places and he could still see the spire and cliffs where the shuttlecraft had first touched down.</p><p>This desert, however, he was already done with. He was done with heat, done with sand and done with the way the seemingly uninhabited and lifeless desert was giving his imagination way too much free reign. Mirages of nonexistent water were calling out to him in the distance. And he could have sworn he had heard footsteps following behind him several times, but when he turned there was nothing. A shapeshifter probably would have eliminated him by now.</p><p>But there were other creatures in Vulcan’s Forge to worry about, and Changelings were the least of his problems. Wild Sehlats were to be found here, the large carnivores that Vulcans had domesticated as pets. But their wild brethren were not so tame and would readily hunt unwary travelers. And then there were the snakes, and a type of sandworm known for swallowing feet…</p><p><em> Easy Julian... </em> he rubbed the sweat from his head, and purposely plotted a course towards some promising looking cliffs where shade might be found. <em> Concentrate on getting where you have to go. </em></p><p>Because he couldn’t just sit still. Jak and Frim had been very firm that the Kaj or the Kai taking this journey was in fact on a ‘journey’, travelling through the desert as if travelling through time towards a destination. He would be finding ‘himself’ hopefully, his past present and hopefully his future as well, and not death by Sehlat. But otherwise, he would be very much alone out here for two days. But he could forage for food and water. That was allowed. He just wasn’t permitted to bring any. The clothes on his back. His sandals, robes and earring. That was all he had.</p><p>Feeling unconvinced of his ability to survive this heat without water, he kept his pace slow, so as not to expend too much energy, and considered the value of trying to dig a shelter in the sand for a brief relief from the heat. He quickly dropped the idea, and proceeded forward, his medical mind focusing on the situation from the perspective of a doctor.</p><p>
  <em> Find a place out of the sun, well protected from the wind, and capable of being defended by territorial beasties...and something with water, something edible...ah. </em>
</p><p>He could almost see them now in his mind, cactus, round, bloated, spiny, and here on Vulcan would be mostly orange and red in color, so they tended to blend in with the landscape. He would have to keep his eyes peeled, but he had an idea in mind.</p><p>
  <em> Some types of rough slate and shale should be had here, I should have checked when we landed...but if I can fashion a tool of some kind...a knife... </em>
</p><p>Savil, Odo and the orphanage seemed like they were light years away...now there was only the heat and the desert sands and the desire to survive that was built into every creature.</p><p>None more so than one who was genetically engineered.</p><hr/><p>“I am looking for one who goes by the name of ‘Ghost’.”</p><p>She was looking him up and down with a wry smile on her lips. This Klingon woman was gray haired and weathered and had survived inside the Klingon prison by selling herself to the other prisoners for their food and supplies. But now she was desperately old, and struggling to get along. And ready to make a deal.</p><p>“And what will you give me for that information?”</p><p>Dreamer felt briefly sorry for her, wondered if she even knew where Ghost was, then realized that she probably did. If she had been here as long as she’d claimed she had, then she'd have been here longer than Ghost had. She probably knew everyone.</p><p>For a moment he considered, then lifted his heaving pack and pointed to it.</p><p>“Something edible perhaps? I also have managed to acquire some…’contraband’.”</p><p>“Let me see…”</p><p>In the last two days that he had been here, searching the thousands of prisoners for the familiar face of Ghost, he had slowly been gathering together supplies and ‘goods’ to use as currency for information exchange. He kept quietly in touch with the rest of his party and made sure to never sleep, but kept moving through the prison in a circuit to keep the other prisoners from questioning him or becoming too familiar with his face. Rura Penthe was crowded right now, and he had feigned long term experience with prison life, and a bit of madness, to keep the experienced felons from antagonizing him too greatly.</p><p>After convincing the bored and cold Klingon guards at the prison entrance gate that they were legitimate with their prisoner transfer, Angel and Thistle had left in the shuttle and hidden themselves unnoticed on the other side of the planet where the Klingons had been unaware of them, or their quiet watch based communications. The force field was very close to where they were parked, but also very well guarded, so they would wait until Dreamer <em> found </em> Ghost before starting on their task of taking out the shield. Dreamer had been mocked by the guards, escorted through the big metal doors that lead down into the prison, and then left to fend for himself.</p><p>As for <em> Enterprise</em>, she was cloaked and running silent, so as not to be detected and so it was all up to him and the shuttlecraft team.</p><p>But he had been forced quite early on to trade away his parka by a grunting old Klingon who had been blocking his route into the barracks and wouldn’t let him pass without some sort of ‘trade’ for the jacket. He had gotten this leather pack and a full set of the prison standard furs in exchange.  Maybe he had gotten the better deal, these furs were meant for surviving in this prison and he blended in more with the crowd. Slowly, over the course of that day and this, he’d very quickly acquired many ‘things’ to trade. Most prisoners just wanted news from the outside and traded him whatever junk was in their pockets for something to talk about, and he had ‘taken’ a few things clandestinely from here and there when their eyes were turned.</p><p>
  <em> And pulling a few wires and circuits out of my own arms and legs... </em>
</p><p>Electronics were the currency here; wires and circuit boards, any electronics were needed and wanted by the prisoners for getting around security cameras and for reprogramming everything, from the replicators to the mining drills themselves, drills that rarely ran anymore as the resources they had once drilled had mostly been depleted. The drills had thus been cannibalized for parts by the prisoners to improve their way of life over the years. He was finding himself thinking as he was walking, thinking of more clever ways to get a few more electronics to trade, and very very grateful that he was not really a prisoner, and not really locked into this way of life.</p><p>“Hmmm,” the Klingon woman pulled out one of the bundles of wires he had ‘acquired’ from his pack, and nodded. “I know where he goes to eat and sleep, likes to be up on a shelf when he’s sleeping, so nobody can steal from him. Follow Mirakan.”</p><p>Dreamer took a deep breath and followed the grinning woman, and paced himself slowly to follow her low shuffling walk. People probably thought he was buying sex. But he did look like an oldster, like her, so it wasn’t out of the bounds of possibility. Although, he was certain age was no barrier to desperation. Nor race.</p><p>
  <em> Everyone was instantly interested in me from the moment I arrived. Very few humans here...very few. Starfleet would certainly be interested in how many humans are actually being held in a Klingon prison...unless they are already aware…? </em>
</p><p>These humans weren’t augments. That would have been too strange. Smugglers mostly, mercenaries a lot of them, people who had gotten on the bad side of Klingons. But then, Rura Penthe had been upgraded greatly from the outdated records the <em> Enterprise </em> library had provided them, with modern barracks and actual buildings in the underground caves and mines where the prisoners lived, and a mess hall. Not enough new buildings for everyone to share them, but they had greatly contributed to the survivability of prisoners here. Where once only a few hundred prisoners would be able to survive here at a time, now there were two thousand strong…</p><p>
  <em> I have been here two days. Ghost must realize by now that I am looking for him. Perhaps he is avoiding me? I have asked a few people so word must have spread by now… </em>
</p><p>Dreamer feared the possibility that the man might be dead. Until he had been pointed to the prostitute, most people had been telling him as such. But most people here were also new prisoners. The Klingons were shuffling prisoners around their facilities, possibly to move prisoners away from the border where the conflict with the Dominion and now the Factions was threatening.</p><p>“Down this way…”</p><p>It was a cold corridor into the older part of the barracks, the part that was still rock and ice and bare earth. Pipes and tubing lined the ceilings of these tunnels overhead, bringing electricity down these routes to the lights and security cameras here. Security was more lax in this part of the prison, but so was heat, which didn’t seem to exist at all. How any living thing could survive in such cold, he did not know, but he was still aware of how cold it was, even as an android, and thus feigned human behaviour in response to this condition, holding his arms and haunching himself the way the other prisoners did. He could see the prisoners were huddling together and staying close to electrical outlets and warmth generating mechanical contraptions, probably constructed by the prisoners themselves. Another reason for needing electronics.</p><p>
  <em> Heaven help me if I ever really had to survive in a place like this! </em>
</p><p>The very human thought caught him momentarily off guard, and he paused for a moment. His Firebird virtual pet made a soft crooning note in his mind, bringing him firmly and pointedly back to his reasons for being here in this place, in this time.</p><p>“Up there, see...he’s been up there since yesterday. Maybe he’s sick…?”</p><p>Dreamer looked up. This open area of the prison was home to many carved cavern ‘shelves’ where the prisoners could sleep, and there was a heating unit in the center of this cave to give ambient light and warmth to the poor sods who ended up spending a night here instead of the new building.</p><p>Dreamer thanked the woman, and quickly found his way up to the shelf in question. It didn’t take long to find the human, with his back to the room and bent down, eyelids closed, hands bundled together tightly, not making a sound.</p><p>Dreamer was relieved by the sound of rattled breathing. This human was alive. But was he the one he was looking for? He almost wasn’t sure what to say before…</p><p>“I know yer there, state yer business and leave.”</p><p>“You are Ghost, are you not?”</p><p>The man lifted his head. He had long matted tangled gray hair, and the loose jowls of a man who ate a lot and then lost a lot, feast and then famine. His skin was pock marked with scars under the gray beard. The heavy furs seemed too big for him, despite the fact that this man was rather tall, and the ears were pierced with two long hooked wires threaded through them, and in his hand...</p><p>A security camera. Wired up around his ears and up into his head, into his cranium through a hole in his skull. A brain implant. Dreamer felt his breath intake in recognition, and pain, as the man’s eyelids, concave and bruised, vibrated, but did not open. Nothing would be obtained by opening eyelids with empty sockets.</p><p>
  <em> And now...we have a problem. </em>
</p><hr/><p>He finally made the foothills he had spotted in the distance as the sun began to set in the west, feeling his stomach turning painfully in hunger. No sign of cactus here, just his luck, but he wasn’t in danger of starving yet. He had two more days of this to deal with, and then water would be a serious need, but at least he had found shelter.</p><p>This rocky outcropping was made up of several layers of shale, shelves of red sandstone and limestone, sedimentary layers millions of years old, big jutting outcroppings of white interspersed with red and black, like the many many pages of a book. A very unique pattern of colors found on planets like Earth, but here it was uniquely arranged in a horseshoe shape around a barren sandy dip on the desert floor. High and tall, and stable for climbing, he quickly mounted the wall, heading for a very specific outcropping he had spotted as he had approached, one that was sheltered on one side and on top by more jutting shelves of rock. Each layer showed him the geological history of this rock formation.</p><p>
  <em> Beautiful… </em>
</p><p>Julian felt himself finally stop, for the first time in almost twelve hours, and turned to survey the desert he had just crossed in admiration.</p><p>Vast and glowing red with the setting sun, clean and bright, the wind had begun picking up and he could see the waves of sand currents just beginning to form in the distance. He looked around with his strong engineered eyes, but just couldn’t see any vegetation. He did see the faint far far distant line of the place where he had started his journey. He knew he wasn’t going to be staying here, no matter how well sheltered. He needed that food and water, and he wanted to see what was on the other side of this rocky cliff, though it was so tall he considered going around it. He didn’t want to wear himself out completely climbing a mountain.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Go where the heart leads you, Kaj…’ </em>
</p><p>For a moment he thought it was Opaka, but she had been strangely silent. It was his own memory of Jak speaking to him, preparing him for the day.</p><p>
  <em> My heart is taking me to Quark’s, for a tall glass of jumja juice and a big bowl of plomeek soup. </em>
</p><p>No. He couldn’t indulge in those sorts of fantasies or he would go mad. He decided to examine the shelf of this cliff wall a little more, while there was still light, and turned back to begin moving again, this time moving along the cliff wall, slowly and carefully where the path was thinnest, and found himself making his way around the inner curve of the horseshoe, slowly finding his footing settling down to an easy rhythm.</p><p>It was just as the last light of the day was setting behind him that he spotted it. It was out of place in the layers of orange white and black rock. It was gray and somewhat sunken in and his eyes picked out some carved symbols.</p><p>
  <em> Oh...some Vulcan ruins maybe…? </em>
</p><p>It was above him on the ledge, he would have to climb up to it, and the darkness was not his friend.</p><p>
  <em> In the morning maybe? </em>
</p><p>He paused.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Kaj...go where your heart leads you…Listen to the voice within...’ </em>
</p><p>Oh yes. That was definitely Opaka. Steeling himself, he decidedly began to climb and found himself clinging to the wall of rock, looking at the symbols in the wall, vaguely recognizable as ancient Vulcan runic scriptwork. Words. </p><p>
  <em> ‘Ree…ka...sha…’ </em>
</p><p>As the symbols were fast moving under his hands, he realized he was breathing hard. He had been on his feet for thirteen hours, an unlucky number in human folklore, but in Vulcan mythology...</p><p>
  <em> Thirteen is the number of the sun. </em>
</p><p>As the light of the setting sun hit the surface of the rock, the symbols began to glow with soft light. He breathed deeply, his breath coming out of him heavily, and he realized he had run out of symbols...and that he had been going in the wrong direction.</p><p>
  <em> Sha-ka-ree...Vulcan heaven….and then... </em>
</p><p>Going down was easier than up, and as the glowing symbols passed up under his hands, he read them to himself…</p><p>
  <em> ‘Heaven cannot be found when you seek it, but is always there when you do not…’ </em>
</p><p>His feet found sand at last and he breathed deeply, and looked up at the wall of glowing ancient wisdom, and looked around.</p><p>Here he was in the center of the horseshoe of rock, as the last of the setting sun was sinking into the distance, the glowing symbols were growing dim.</p><p>But the sand beneath his feet was glittering with light. Something was glowing underneath the sand.</p><p>
  <em> What is this…? </em>
</p><p>He began to dig...the sand was very loose here, and he kicked himself mentally for not doing what he had planned by finding a tool...he was digging with hands, and pulled off his sandal at last to scoop sand away with, and was despairing when light at last shot through the darkness into his eyes.</p><p>Here was something...something that should not have been in the sands of Vulcan</p><p>With gentle fingers and the hems of his robe sleeves he carefully scooped up the shattered fragments of crystal light that were the scattered remains of a Bajoran orb, thinking that Sisko would be amazed by his discovery, maybe a little jealous…</p><p>In an instant he was gone. Swept up in a flash of light into the strangeness of an Orb Vision.</p><p>
  <em>What the hell...?</em>
</p><p>Julian found himself in a place that was midday, and he was looking at Dax, and Jake Sisjo...and of course Captain Sisko...who was digging frantically in the sand, looking for something...looking for something important...something dear…</p><p>Of course. Another Orb. The Orb of the Emissary.</p><p>And this one, in his arms, was The Orb of the…?</p><p>
  <em> ‘Kaj...see where you were….’ </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘See where I was?’ </em>
</p><p>A flash, another image, a boy...a child. Julian Bashir.</p><p>No. This was Jules. At less than seven. Much less than seven. He was sitting at the coffee table. A ruddy little box of crayons, broken into pieces, was spread all over the surface he was on, a small piece of paper was under his hands, and his mother nearby tutting over him and admonishing him over the splashes of rainbow color drawn all over the table top as well as the paper...but his visions had been too big for a small sheet of paper. Had she not understood?</p><p>
  <em> ‘See now, where you could have been…’ </em>
</p><p>Another flash of light, and he found himself in a medical facility of some sort, and looking around he saw he was in a room with big white walls, covered in colorful works of art. And on the floor in front of a table was himself.</p><p>Fully grown. In the clothes of an institutionalized patient.</p><p>
  <em> Me...if I hadn’t been engineered. </em>
</p><p>Startled, and unnerved, he approached himself. ‘Jules’ was now full grown, a man, but not as tall as him, and those ears were big and floppy like they had been before he was engineered, his arms were lankier and less muscled. But he was focused, bent down with a pastel of red in between firmly crooked fingers, over a large paper sheet, and he was moving, slowly over the paper canvas. Julian looked down at the image.</p><p>Shapes of moving green strands, the stems of flowers, topped with bright red round poppies.</p><p>
  <em> An artist...I would have been an artist… </em>
</p><p>Two nurses were in the room, he realized, watching him. An artist, but institutionalized. Did anyone outside this room ever see the beauty of these pastel masterpieces? Did his parents visit?</p><p>But this had never never happened. Reality hit him hard, and fast. He was not this person.</p><p>
  <em> ‘See now how your brother goes…’ </em>
</p><p>Another flash and the vision changed again, and for a moment his confusion was actually justified. He thought he was seeing <em> that </em> man again. The grey haired man from Adigeon Prime who had given him the books. He was looking at a gray haired man, identical to that man, but a little bit younger, in fact, wrapped up in furs, and caring for another old man with long hair, helping him down off a shelf of stone...then both men looked up.</p><p>Both had heard it, one was sightless, and using a kitbashed camera connected to his brain to see...a very badly arranged form of vision, there was a large chance that the hole in his skull could become infected, and brain injury could result...and the man wasn’t actually seeing images with the camera, just detecting changes in light levels.</p><p>The two were suddenly set upon by three Klingons. The first man was now fighting, and protecting the vulnerable blind man, striking with fast hands and throwing with arms and legs that were far stronger than they should have been if they could throw a full grown Klingon through the air...A spark of sudden electrical light, and the Klingon was down, and the man was holding his hand over the sparking light coming out of his injured mechanical arm.</p><p>
  <em> An android...Data? Is that Data...?? </em>
</p><p>It was. He didn’t know how he knew this, but it was, and he was beyond startled. What was the android doing, dressed up as an old timer...in what looked like a Klingon prison!?</p><p>
  <em> ‘See...where your protector goes…’ </em>
</p><p>Again the vision changed, and he was looking upon a group of Cardassians, moving in darkness between the buildings of some city street, away from main thoroughfares, avoiding the Jem’Hadar guards. Two guls, and a glinn perhaps, and four civilians, the girl was pregnant, and covering her face, which turned briefly...</p><p>
  <em> Ziyal…? </em>
</p><p>One of the men was holding her arm, and he lifted his head with her, concern and fear etched in his eyes and Julian mentally gasped in recognition of his face.</p><p>
  <em> No! No that’s impossible! </em>
</p><p>
  <em> ‘Impossible Kaj is searching outwards for the Prophets, when they are always within you…See now where your future goes...’ </em>
</p><p>Julian wanted to reach out and hold onto the vision of Garak for all his might, but the vision had melted away, and he was in a dark room, surrounded by circuits of light, and a man, pale and dark haired and seemingly comfortable in the dark, was slowly and methodically working away at a mass of electronics on his desk in front of him.</p><p>An android head, its skull gaping and empty, lay next to him. The man had removed the positronic brain.</p><p>
  <em> Data again…? No...not Data...someone else...his brother…Lore? </em>
</p><p>How he knew this, he didn’t understand, but the man in the image disappeared and he was moving again into the next vision…</p><p>
  <em> ‘See now, Kaj, where your heart has always been…’ </em>
</p><p>He was on DS9 now, in the replimat, and the promenade was crowded, and he could hear familiar warm laughter, sweet and light, and he sat there for many moments in deep love and understanding, and some sadness, watching Songbird and Shavi sharing lunch and conversation.</p><p>Songbird’s hair was a mess, which was on brand, and his eyes were crinkled up with his laughter at whatever the wry and witty Shavi had said. He achingly longed to know what they were saying, desperately wanted to be there, and not just seeing them in a vision.</p><p>
  <em> I belong with Songbird, on Deep Space Nine. On Bajor. My home… </em>
</p><p>And the vision disappeared and he found himself, alone again, laying on the sand of Vulcan’s Forge, tears streaming down his face.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I imagine adult!Jules' art would be displayed publicly by whatever mental institution he was living in. Canon was never entirely clear about what his learning or mental problem might have been that his parents had finally decided on genetic engineering, so I'm taking my own liberties here.</p><p>Oh and enjoy the Star Wars joke, if you spotted it. ;)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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